A Sage in Fiore
by BirnaBerry
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke have succeeded in sealing away Madara at a heavy price. The consequences of a technique condemn Naruto to leaving his world to balance his actions and he is thrown into a world without ninjas, but one that has magic and wizards. Deciding to make the best of his situation and to honor his friends' wishes to live a life, he starts a new adventure with Fairy Tail!
1. Sore Losers Ruin The Game

**Hey all! This is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for weeks and I just couldn't let it sit anymore. This follows the recent chapters of the Naruto manga with glossing over the fight with Madara and how I think they could beat him. I have a fairly good idea of how Naruto will interact with the members of the Fairy Tail universe and how the plot will go. For now, he'll be going through canon for the most part while meeting certain characters early. Eventually, we'll see some changes in characters, but you gotta start small! **

**As for pairings, I have a few ideas and we'll see how that goes, but I'd love to hear your opinions! **

**Naruto will also be a bit different in this story as war changes people and there'll be a small bit of time to pass before he arrives in the Fairy Tail universe. He'll be a bit more mature, yet still an idiot in some ways.  
**

**Anyway, I don't own either Naruto or Fairy Tail, blah blah blah. Though if either author wants to hand over the rights...**

* * *

"This is the end! Prepare yourselves!" Madara Uchiha yelled as his white, Juubi-infused, sage cloak billowed with barely restrained power despite the deterioration. Throughout the fight, Naruto and Sasuke had managed to use the chakra and techniques granted to them through Sage of the Six Paths to slowly beat back Madara. Sasuke's newly acquired Rinnegan not only allowed him to take space-time manipulation teleportation to a new level, but also seal off Madara's movements and techniques until not even Madara's _Limbo: Hengoku_(Limbo: Border Jail) technique was reliable. While Sasuke made Madara's repertoire of techniques useless, Naruto used the senjutsu chakra of the Sage and the nine biju to physically overpower Madara. Not even reclaiming his other Rinnegan eye from Obito could turn the tides. Sasuke's technical ability was superior and Naruto's physical and chakra capability outclassed his. Separately, Madara could have won, with great effort mind you, but won none the less. Together, Naruto and Sasuke were his equal and with teamwork had a greater margin of error and support to rely on.

And so it came to this. While the power of the Juubi could indeed be classified as infinite as the source of chakra and being a true part of nature, any vessel that uses that power can only process so much at one time and use it for so long. Not even the original Sage of the Six Paths could use the Juubi's strength indefinitely and genetically speaking, he was as close to a perfect vessel as there could be. An enhanced body may have helped Madara bring his compatibility up, but it was no where near the original jinchūriki's. After suffering this much damage, it didn't matter what would happen as he was too unstable to keep up his Juubi Sage form and even resting would not change that. Madara Uchiha would both implode and release the Juubi or he could release the Juubi and still perish due to the amount of power he would be releasing.

So why not take out the cause of his troubles with him?

As far as Madara saw, the world was doomed either way. If he could not complete the Eye of the Moon plan, then the hellish world he had known and could still see would continue. His plan was the only chance there was for a peaceful and controlled world; the other, pitiful people were either too weak to protest this and make their own vision a reality or they didn't understand that he was correct. The Juubi would be released and rampage once more without a jinchūriki or someone would try to seal it within themselves. The world was doomed, so why not indulge in a bit of personal satisfaction. No matter what the ending was going to be, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha would not be there to see it.

"_Senpō: Rin'ne no Mugen Fukkatsu_ (Sage Art: Infinite Rebirth of the Saṃsāra)!" Madara called out the name of his technique as the white cloak's tears and holes began to widen and shine. His white hair had begun to darken to its former black color. Despite no longer being a reanimated corpse, his skin began to crack and flake. Madara Uchiha was falling apart.

Naruto and Sasuke stood in front of the floating Uchiha. Both were breathing heavily and scuffed from the conflict with Naruto having more physical injuries though Sasuke's Rinnegan eye had a trail of blood coming from the side. Both were approaching their limits as well since this was the first time that they had used the power they had received from the Sage of Six Paths.

Though the landscape suffered more from the conflict than any of the participants. They had long since abandoned the area where the other shinobi and their comrades had watched the fight and the trail of destruction proved it.

The ground was cracked and torn apart; pillars of earth jutted from the ground and clouds of dust from broken rock could be seen as far as the eye could see. The remains of a cliff were off to a side; it was now a short hill that could be jumped over. Any fertility in the area was long since gone and would take years for life to return here. This area would definitely be marked as a new landmark where three mortal gods fought for their beliefs.

Madara's technique began to take shape before them. Dark, malicious chakra began to spiral around the fallen Uchiha and surrounded him in a shell of it. When the chakra settled, Madara was encased in a cocoon of his power and couldn't be seen.

"This will be the end of all of us! The finale in our dance! Know that whatever world comes of this, you will not be there to see it!" Madara's voice echoed from the cocoon. It was strained and pained as Madara struggled to control the chaotic flux within him long enough to end himself and his two opponents.

"What's he doing now!?" Naruto shouted as he regained control over his breathing, gripping the two short staffs he held made of his senjutsu chakra. "He hasn't used this yet. Did he have one more trick up his sleeve?" he asked Sasuke as the black-haired youth wiped the blood off of his face.

"If anything I've learned about Madara is right, then I know he's a sore loser. If we take what he said at face value, he knows he can't win… So he wants to make sure we don't either." Sasuke replied as the tomoe in his Rinnegan began to spin lazily when Sasuke tried to interpret the technique. "He plans to end himself and take us with him."

"But if he does that then the Juubi dies too, doesn't it?" Naruto questioned once more as the dark cocoon began to slowly expand. The chakra of the sphere had a slight shimmer to it now, as if it was constantly in moving erratically. Like power bubbling under the surface that was just waiting to burst.

"Only for a while… We don't now how long the Juubi will take to reform. Will it having so much power mean that it would take a lifetime? Or will it being a true part of nature make it reform within a shorter amount of time?" Sasuke replied with a scowl instead of his passive determination. "We don't have enough information to know."

Naruto grimaced, his features flickering like fire. "I think… We need to use the technique that Old Man Six Paths gave us." He said, his voice being just above a whisper. "It's the only thing I can think of that might be able to help us now."

Sasuke's eyes widened in shock though his expression stayed in a scowl. "I thought he told us that we couldn't use it by ourselves. We'd need to cooperate and even then…it won't work perfectly. The consequences…What about your dream? To be Hokage? I expected us to finally have that fight to see who would be better for it."

"This is more important. If we use anything besides sealing then we risk setting that thing he made off and you know it. With this new Sage Mode, I can feel how unstable it is and the power behind it… Hell, even sealing might set it off…" Naruto countered, his stubbornness substituting itself for any logic he might be missing. This last technique was the final thing that the Sage of Six Paths had given them to use in the worst case scenario. The original plan had been to beat Madara into the ground while slowly siphoning off the Juubi's chakra into Naruto where the consciousness of the biju resided. Madara would be left severely exhausted and without his power source then they could both end him.

Sadly, Madara kept pushing past his limit and now that was no longer an option. Not even the consciousness of the biju could gather up the chakra of the Juubi in time to prevent its release. The focused power of the Juubi was much better to fight rather than the raging beast itself.

"…I never thought I'd see the day where the class dobe would make a good argument," Sasuke said with an attempted smirk. It just came out as a pained smile. "He's been kind enough to give us the time we need… that technique is building up pretty slowly from what I can see. He's slowly rebounding the Juubi's chakra inside him in a circuit… When it gets big enough, he's going to let it go wild."

Sasuke looked into Naruto's cross-shaped, golden pupils.

"More than enough time for us to finish him. Start molding your chakra."

Sasuke's Susanoo swirled into existence around them. The purple titan clapped its hands together as Naruto sat cross legged with a neutral expression and began to mediate. Sasuke's brow furrowed in concentration as his chakra construct began to mimic the handsigns that he himself was going through.

Naruto's golden, sage cloak began to reach out with tendrils of chakra towards the surface of the purple Susanoo. As they touched and latched onto it, Sasuke's technique took on a golden color. The menacing face of Sasuke's guardian shifted into a fox-like mask when Naruto's chakra fully integrated itself with it. Sasuke stood behind the sitting Naruto within their creation as the black chakra of Madara now resembled a black sphere the size of two, grown men. Spikes and waves erupted over the surface of the desperate technique.

It was almost at the last stage.

"What are two trying now? Even if you mix the power of the Sage of the Six Path's chakra and visual prowess, you're only matching me. There is nothing to be done now. Let's depart this hell together for the next." Madara's voice echoed forth.

"You'll never make it to hell, Madara. We'll make sure of it now. The existence known as Madara Uchiha will vanish from reality and never return" Sasuke calmly replied with an icy tone. His hand clapped together as the final seal in the technique. He was determined now to make this technique worth it. The cost of it was almost too much to even think about. But, Naruto had placed his faith in it. So, Sasuke would also trust in it.

He would place his faith in his closest friend.

"You and Obito kept saying that this world is hell, but we don't think so. Too many people have given their everything to protect it and the people in it. A place like that…it's worth protecting. The place where the people we care about exist and are happy. This world isn't hell, Madara; it's just in turmoil because of people like you. That's why I promised that I would break the chain of hatred and bring peace! Sasuke can see it now too! We'll do it together, just like Asura and Indra should have!" Naruto shouted his piece.

"And we'll start here with this technique! _Senpō: Satori Keihatsu no Nehan_(Sage Art: Nirvana of the Enlightened Lock)!" both Naruto and Sasuke shouted the name of their combined technique. Their answer to Madara's desperate attempt born out of hatred.

The golden, fox-faced Susanoo began to sprout diamond shaped spikes all over its body. Suddenly, the spikes flew off the body with chains connecting them to their source. They enveloped the cocoon of destruction and began to compress it. The chaotic sphere resisted as best it could though more chains fired off quickly crushed its efforts.

"What is this!?" Madara shouted from within the quickly diminishing technique. He had never even heard of this jutsu nor read of it. It was not recorded in the Uchiha's records nor on the ancient tablet. Not even in the legends of the Sage of the Six Paths was such a thing noted. It obviously seemed to be some kind of sealing technique or suppression at the very least. A measure of unease went through him. Could this possibly somehow counter his final move? Was he doomed to not even take his opponents with him to the afterlife?

"A final parting gift from an old man who put his faith in his sons. We're just returning that faith even if it's long overdue." Sasuke's response, if possible, was even colder than his last response to Madara. The technique was working. That meant that its price would also be extracted.

"Old Man Six Paths thought we should have some insurance against you. He might be a crafty, old man, but he knew what he was doing in the end." Naruto added though he sounded exhausted.

"This is what you can call the ultimate sealing technique. Instead of sealing you within something or someone, we're sealing you outside of the cycle of rebirth. You will never again come back to this world or any for that matter. I hope you enjoy non-existence. You can take the body of the Juubi with you. That mindless beast deserves you and you deserve it." Sasuke finished their explanation.

The chains had by now compressed Madara's technique down to its original size and was still progressing. It didn't matter that a man was inside it and that it shouldn't be possible. Sweat beaded down Sasuke's forehead from concentration and Naruto looked as if he was on his last leg. They only had a little left to wait though. The technique would soon run its course and then Madara would be no more in this world or any other.

"Curse you, Naruto! Curse you, Sasuke! Damn you both! I hope the dream of peace you two have turns into ash in your mouths! I hope that your victory turns hollow!" Madara cursed as the once great sphere was now only the size of baseball and still shrinking.

Both Naruto and Sasuke froze at his words. Madara was unaware at how accurate his words would prove to be. While their dream would eventually come true, their victory would indeed turn out to be hollow.

Madara Uchiha was definitely the ultimate, sore loser.

And with a pop of space-time reasserting itself, Madara Uchiha was no more. The dark ball collapsed into itself and the chairs drew back into the pair's Susanoo. The Susanoo then began to fade away and left both boys lying on the ground.

Sasuke's Rinnegan and Sharingan had faded away and left his onyx eyes visible. Naruto's Six Path's Sage form had also faded and left him in his normal form. Both of their outfits were torn and scratched to ruin. In addition, their bodies had numerous half-healed wounds and several fresh ones. Both of them were utterly exhausted physically, mentally and spiritually.

"So… Can you feel it already?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm not sure… Granted we did just get through fighting the biggest teme since the original Juubi went crazy." Naruto replied. "Even all the biju are exhausted. I can't feel any of their chakra, but I can feel their presence. They must have gotten enough of their power back from Madara to not fade away. I guess they'll rest and recharge."

"Naruto! Sasuke!"

Both of the boys tried to turn their heads to see who had called them. Their eyelids were becoming heavier by the second, but they could make out a head of pink hair rushing towards them wearing what appeared to be a Konoha shinobi outfit. It was easy to guess who it was since they both only really knew one person with pink hair.

"Are you both alright?" She asked as she bent down over both of them with her palms glowing with green flame. She was running a diagnostic jutsu to make sure that they weren't in any life threatening danger from their wounds. So far it seemed like they were just exhausted and their wounds would heal just fine.

"We're fine Sakura-chan. Just really tired hehe," Naruto replied with a chuckle. Since Madara was gone, his infectious grin was back. But there seemed to be something strained about his smile. Like he was forcing it.

Sakura didn't notice in her relief at the situation seemingly being over, but Sasuke grimaced at his friend's expression. It didn't matter that he had only truly accepted the blond as his best friend just a few hours ago since the bond was always there. Seeing him forcing himself to be happy right now when he was most likely devastated on the inside made Sasuke feel hollow. Just like Madara wanted him to feel.

"Naruto!"

"Uzumaki-sama!"

"Sasuke-kun!"

"Uchiha!"

Several voices shouted for them, but their consciousness was already slipping. Both of their senses of sight were little better than blurs right now and their minds scrambled with exhaustion. Before losing consciousness, Sasuke managed to say one thing to Naruto. It was low enough that only Naruto and Sakura could hear despite the gathering crowd.

"Sorry, Dobe…" Sasuke said without any malice in the name though with plenty regret.

"It's alright, Teme…We can talk about it later."

Sakura looked from one boy to the other in confusion. That confusion quickly turned to panic as she thought that something had happened or there was still a threat to contend with. She quickly smashed that thought down. They could be a team again now. Madara was gone. Everything was going to be okay now. It had to be. They had gone through too much for something to separate them again or for some new threat to rise up from nowhere.

* * *

Naruto awoke to the familiar white walls of the Konoha hospital. The smell of anesthesia and alcohol greeted him like an old friend while the bed was as uncomfortable as he remembered. With a sigh, he heaved himself up and frowned at his weakness. Then he remembered what he had done and a wave of resignation came over him. The cost of the technique he and Sasuke used to seal away Madara and the Juubi was already beginning to take its toll. He had to contact someone to get him a brush and sealing ink as soon as he could. With any luck, he could postpone the process for maybe a year. Though in exchange it would prevent him from trying anything else to fix the situation. But Old Man Six Paths did warn both him and Sasuke that there was no way of weaseling out of the technique's price. Postponing it was the only option they had.

Looking around the room, he saw that he was in a private suite if it could it be called that. A hero deserves the best apparently. Though the light blue, hospital robe was definitely the same that he always wore. Even luxury has its limits it seems. Oh well, he wasn't one for such things anyway. He then looked around the room and ignored the cushioned, red seats and the dresser and desk in the room. There had to be something in the room he could use to call for someone or maybe there was a seal in the room that would alert a medic that he was awake. Finding nothing, Naruto decided to turn his attention inward. He had to make sure all of his new tenants were fine.

While he had felt them after the fight, Naruto was still worried. The bulk of their existences were within the Juubi during the fight and only a spark of their power with their consciousness was with Naruto. When that power was spent, their presence would vanish from within him. Though they had been absorbing power from Madara during the fight due to the fact that their own power would be drawn to its original owner. If they could take back enough of their power, even just half, they could maintain their sense of self within Naruto and recover the rest.

Naruto appeared within his mindscape though it had changed with his meeting with the Sage of the Six Paths and the biju. He was standing on a blue lake of water with nine shrine gates surrounding him. There was nothing in the distance, but more water though below was a different story. Images of his life came and went in the depths; some of the images brought a smile to him and some a frown, but he didn't regret any of them. He then looked up to see an equally blue sky with no clouds to block out the light of an orange-golden sun. He smiled slightly to himself. Naruto definitely approved of this more than a sewer.

Turning his attention to the nine shrine gates, he let a pulse of his will emit from himself. The water he was standing on was disturbed by it and sent out a circular wave also. The red shrine gates glowed for a moment and then stopped. It was an assurance that while the biju did not have the strength to respond normally, they were fine and just resting. Naruto was satisfied and willed himself out of the mindscape with another soft smile.

He returned to the hospital room, mentally at least, and was surprised to see Tsunade herself standing there with a chart that probably had information on his health. She was wearing her normal grey kimono top and obi with blue pants and her ever-present, green jacket. She had a frown on her face as she looked over the chart as if something on it seemed odd to her. After a moment, she realized that Naruto had opened his eyes from his meditative state and was staring at her with a grin.

"Hey, Baa-chan."

Tsunade's frown became a slight grin at hearing that. "I'll let you get away with that for now, brat. After all, it's not every day that you put down a legend and save the world." She definitely didn't look worse for the wear meaning she was healthy and her transformation technique was going strong. It made Naruto wonder how long he had been knocked out. Judging by his low chakra, he would normally say not long. But, with circumstances being what they are, some amount of time had probably passed.

"So, how is everyone? And what's been happening?" Naruto asked.

"Well, everyone that made it out of that final fight is recovering now. All the nations have lost quite a significant portion of their forces. The damage done to the areas we fought in… Well, unless we have multiple masters of doton(earth release), suiton(water release), and mokuton(wood release) with reserves to match you, then they're going to stay ruined for quite a long time. As for the current situation, all the kages have been in contact from our own villages and we've been finalizing peace talks along with helping each other out." Tsunade replied with a small smile.

Naruto returned it. "So, peace is really coming then," he said. Then he looked down in thought for a moment before shaking it off and turning back to Tsunade. "How's Sasuke?" he asked the Godaime Hokage.

Tsunade gave a small smirk. "You're lucky that he's had another attitude change. He's been up for much longer than you have and the first thing he demanded was to know if you were okay and where you were. He seemed almost desperate." Tsunade then shifted to a serious expression. "Want to explain why he looked like he thought you would be gone or dead?"

"Haha…I don't know what you're talking about, Baa-chan…" Naruto lied badly. He was scratching the back of his head and had a sheepish expression on his face. He then also put on a serious expression. "There is something I need right now though and then if you can have someone bring Sasuke here, we'll need to explain some things to you and probably the other kages too."

Tsunade's eyebrow rose a fraction. "What do you need so quickly and it better not be ramen." She was choosing to ignore his easily spotted lie since he would probably divulge it soon. But if he really wanted ramen then she would make sure to _extend_ his stay in the hospital room. Though she did wonder what the two boys could have to say to her and the other kages.

"Can you get me a basic sealing kit? I don't need anything special."

Naruto's request merely made her looked shocked for a moment. She wasn't aware that Naruto was proficient enough in sealing theory to actually make something beyond an exploding tag. Granted she wasn't aware that he and Sasuke had used a sealing jutsu to beat Madara. The Elemental Nations just assumed that the duo had used some extremely risky and powerful technique to outright defeat the egotistical man. After all, Sakura was the only one who could have spotted the technique with how closely she was following the boys and she wasn't an expert in sealing.

It also kind of helps that giant, glowing chains compressing someone into nothing seems more like a ninjutsu rather than a fūinjutsu.

"What do you need a sealing kit for?" she asked as she walked towards a hidden closet by the door. Opening the white, sliding door, she took out a not so impressive wooden box. Every room was required to have a sealing kit due to how useful the art of sealing could be in healing. Though the kits didn't have anything rare or special in them for the more powerful seals. Just a standard issue brush and mid-level quality ink made up the kit.

She handed the kit to Naruto without waiting for his answer. Tsunade had enough trust in the young man to hand it over without fearing him using it to do something stupid in this situation. Naruto nodded his thanks and set the kit beside him. He then proceeded to undue the top of the hospital gown and let it fall to the covers to expose his chest. Besides being notably fit and at the peak of a human's physique, there seemed to be nothing else to note.

That was until he made a familiar cross shape with his middle and index finger. Molding what little chakra he had, black symbols sprang to life on his upper body. The first was the familiar seal that held the Kyūbi (Nine Tails), Kurama, for most of Naruto's life. It was the Eight Trigams Seal otherwise known as the Hakke no Fūin Shiki. The seal consisted of swirl in the middle of his lower stomach surrounded by a circle of runes and kanji that jutted out at eight points. It was a work of art and based on Uzumaki Sealing Arts passed down through the family. Naruto's father successfully used and created it only because of his wife and Naruto's mother, Kushina Uzumaki.

Though now there was also a second seal on his upper body. The seal was at the bottom of his throat and at the center between his clavicles. It was much smaller than the Hakke no Fūin Shiki that dominated the lower half. It was also much simpler; the seal consisted of three dark circles with the largest one on the inside and the other two on the inside giving it an eye-like appearance. However, what gave Tsunade a fright was the fact that nine tomoe were present on the seal. There were three of the symbols on each ring and evenly spaces and identical except for a one thing. The three tomoe on the inner most ring were dark and filled in while the other six on the other rings were only outlines.

The seal looked exactly like the eye of the Juubi before it was transformed into its tree form and absorbed by Madara.

Before Tsunade could ask about the new seal, she saw Naruto frown.

"I hope I have enough for this…" He muttered. Finished with carefully molding his chakra so he could compensate for his lack of control, he focused on using his signature technique. "_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu _(Shadow Clone Technique)". A small cloud of smoke signaled the creation of a single clone that appeared sitting in front of him. The clone looked winded and exhausted showing that, even though Naruto carefully molded his chakra to conserve what little he had, the clone still was poorly made. Tsunade frowned in contemplation and worry. Naruto never _ever _made a poor shadow clone with rest. It only confirmed what the chart that she was reading before Naruto stopped mediating said.

Despite the long rest he taken after the battle, Naruto's previously monstrous reserves of chakra were at dangerously low levels. For him at least.

"You know what to do," Naruto told his clone after taking a few deep breaths.

The clone nodded in understanding and slowly took the wooden box that contained the sealing equipment. Opening the box, the clone took out the wooden brush and the bottle of ink. Uncorking the bottle and dipping the brush in it, the clone carefully began drawing symbols and lines around the upper seal on the original Naruto. The original Naruto tried to stand still and relaxed so that he didn't disturb the clone's work. Tsunade just observed in silence with a worried expression.

After roughly fifteen minutes, the clone put the brush down and looked over his work. The seal now had a ring of characters encasing it almost as if it was trying to keep something out. Nodding in satisfaction the clone dispelled without a word since the original would receive his memories and thoughts within a moment. The remaining Naruto closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them, he also nodded. "Okay. No time to waste."

Naruto flared as much chakra as he could to activate the seal. The seal he drew glowed a deep blue for a moment before returning to the dark color the ink.

With a gasp, Naruto nearly fell over as he felt his chakra begin to replenish itself normally. Despite this being a good thing, his body had essentially only been healed of its wounds and not exhaustion so activating the seal and then feeling the rush of his chakra coming back was starting to become too much for him. Tsunade rushed over to steady him and noted that he looked a little better now. However before she could question him, Naruto simply collapsed in her grip and fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

It took a few hours for Naruto to wake up again, but he definitely felt perfectly healthy again. Someone had redone the top of his hospital gown so he undid it once again to look at the seal. Even though he was no actively channeling chakra or molding it, the new seal was present. Good. His counter seal was working and judging by the flow of chakra going to the actual eye-like seal, he had the year he estimated. Looking around the room once again, he noticed that someone had left clothes for him. Sadly, they weren't his usual orange and black choice.

Instead, he had something that he was sure no one he knew would have picked out for him. First, there was the standard shinobi mesh shirt. It was made up of countless, tiny chains linked together with a chakra conductive cloth backing it. The point of the metal was to catch kunai and shuriken while the chakra conductive cloth helped absorb ninjutsu. Though it would do little good against higher end weapons and the end class ninjutsu. There was also a kimono top like Tsunade wore only this one was longer. It was a light blue with dark blue thread making designs of waves and blowing winds. Luckily instead of a traditional obi, there was an orange sash to tie it. A pair of dark pants that the ANBU wore accompanied the top along with a pair of black shinobi sandals much like the ones he usually wore. His leaf headband sat on top of it all. The metal was polish and repaired, but the cloth it was attached to was definitely new as the black was not washed out to a lighter shade. It wasn't his regular outfit, but he felt he could like it.

Right after he properly mourned his past one. He loved orange after all and felt he was justified in that since the color of his chakra while working with the biju was orange too. Orange must hold some special role in the world. Something like that just wasn't coincidence!

He quickly got dressed, but adjusted the outfit to suit him. Instead of securely tying the kimono top with the sash, he let it stay loosely around him instead. He also tried to emulate what Utakata did somewhat by leaving much of his upper chest free from the kimono. Naruto might not have known the jinchūriki of Saiken that well since they only spoke for a few minutes during the meeting of all the biju and their jinchūriki, but he thought he looked pretty cool. And as a self-proclaimed and proven successor to the Sage of the Six Paths, Naruto felt he should look pretty cool himself. Sasuke couldn't keep all the badass to himself now.

Naruto briefly toyed with the idea of tying the headband to his forehead, but decided against it. Thinking on it, he decided to tie it through the orange sash and let it hang off of there. Satisfied with his current outfit, he thought of how he should go about collecting Sasuke to meet with Tsunade and the other kages. He was sure that they would have a way of direct communication set up since they just won a war. Hell, some of them might be here in Konoha.

Before Naruto could consider anything else, he felt a presence at the window of his room. Turning to it, he saw one of the ANBU of Konoha sitting at the windowsill. Judging by the arms and body, it was a male wearing the standard outfit of black cloth and light purple armor. On their face they wore a porcelain wolf mask that blocked any of their features from being seen. The ANBU knocked lightly on the window so that Naruto would open it.

"Uzumaki-sama, the Hokage requests your presence at the tower. You are to meet with her, Sasuke Uchiha, Kazekage-sama, and Mizukage-sama. If you require any assistance, I am to lend you aid." The ANBU spoke after Naruto quickly unlocked the latch and opened the window for him.

"I can get there myself. Thanks for the message." Naruto replied.

The ANBU nodded and jumped towards a nearby rooftop and set off to continue his duties or to return to the Hokage's tower to report. Naruto shrugged since it didn't really matter as his previous conundrum had been solved for him. Plus, Gaara was here himself and out of the kages, besides Tsunade, he was the closest one to Naruto. The Mizukage, on the other hand, he knew little about. He knew that she was a strong kunoichi and that had multiple chakra natures but that was it. There wasn't really any time to talk to her and make friends as they were in the middle of a war. Oh well, might as well do that now as he'd be working closely with her and the other kages now. Or at least he'd be working with them for a year.

Deciding to follow the ANBU out the window since he didn't feel like going through the hospital, Naruto jumped out the window and went on his way to the tower.

It only took a few minutes to reach the tower due to his new found speed. Being the host to all of the biju had increased his physical parameters by a bit, though not by much. Most of it could be probably be contributed to the experience of going through the war and constantly healing the torn muscles from the effort he exerted. The fact that he hadn't used his base form for most of the fighting had left him vaguely unfamiliar with his new physical prowess. With a frown he thought that he'd have to work on correcting that later. Right now though, he had to make a difficult choice.

Part of him told him he should go through the tower like a normal shinobi and enter the Hokage's Office through official channels. After all, he had matured and grown hadn't he? Plus, as a war hero, he would be respected and be looked to as an example for other shinobi and even civilians. Yes, that would probably the correct option.

Or.

He could just walk up to that convenient window and politely let himself in. Jiraiya would be so proud of him too and he felt he should honor the old pervert somehow…preferably by not becoming a pervert himself. Although Jiraiya did foretell it was only a matter of time before the darkness of the ecchi would claim him as a loyal follower.

Huh. Decisions, decisions…

Oh screw it. He was Uzumaki Fucking Naruto, a man among men whom women and children strove to worship for different reasons! If he wanted to walk up a wall and enter Baa-chan's office through a window, then by golly he was going to do it! Doors were for people who didn't appreciate making an entrance!

…Shit, Ero-sennin had been right. The perverse nature of his upbringing was coming to get him. Actually, almost all of his sensei and role models had been perverts themselves. Chances were his dad was a closet pervert or something at this point. He really didn't have a chance to not be a pervert some point.

Sighing, Naruto began walking up the wall.

Inside the Hokage's Office, Tsunade sat at her desk with the two other kages seated in front of her while Sasuke stood against a wall.

Gaara wore his red, coat-like outfit with dark green pants and muddy colored, shinobi sandals. His was missing his traditional gourd that stored his chakra-enriched sand. His injuries had been treated from the fighting and he looked to be in good health. Though he still carried the dark circles around his eyes due a combination of still not used to being able to sleep well and a sign of his former position as container of the Ichibi, Shukaku. Despite that, he looked quite content. Granted that looking content for Gaara merely meant that one corner of his impassive face could be seen trying to grin by rising up a single degree and that his sea-foam colored eyes had a slight twinkle. On a side note, Gaara was not allowed to play poker. Ever.

The Mizukage was a kunoichi named Mei Terumi. She could be described with one word: sensual. Mei was a beautiful women who was in the prime of her life and strength. She had ankle length, auburn hair that was tied into a knot at the top and had a few bangs in her face. Besides having a pretty face, her body was toned and slim and she knew it by the way she was dressed. She wore a dark blue dress with a zipper on the side that allowed for movement in combat, but left her shoulders visible along with giving a hint of cleavage through her mesh shirt. The dress split as it reached her hips leaving only one side of it going past her left leg and other side bare. She wore mesh legging along with blackish-blue shorts and shin guards on her heeled shinobi sandals. A white belt was tied at her waist and held her shinobi pouch among other items. All in all, she was extremely attractive. Too bad her love life seemed to be her quirk. Oh well, at least she didn't read porn in public.

Sasuke had decided to wear something simple and comfortable. He wore a bluish-gray kimono that was tied with a dark blue obi. The kimono covered his whole frame and the sleeves were large enough to hide hands in as well. There were designs of tomoe all over the fabric and the famous Uchiha symbol was embodied on the back. He had also exchanged his previous footwear for the common, blue shinobi sandals. Instead of a scowl or brooding, he had a neutral expression on his face though if you looked closely, his eyes carried an anxious light in them.

The room was eerily silent due to the tension between Sasuke and the two female kages. Tsunade knew what the Uchiha had done while outside the village due to personal stake her student Sakura and Naruto had in his situation. Sasuke leaving under her leadership also didn't endear him to her or that Orochimaru had been the one who created that situation even though the snake sannin had redeemed himself the tiniest bit during the war against Madara. Mei also accurately remembered the battle taking place during the Kage Summit meeting. Fighting against someone, even an attractive male like Sasuke, who was trying to kill or do you harm quickly made you wary of them. The only reason either kage hadn't tried to kill him was that he was a big part of the reason Madara had been defeated and that he seemed to have turned over a new leaf.

Gaara on the other hand just didn't talk because of the inborn male instinct to avoid the war path of angry women. Plus, the Uchiha had helped bring Naruto out of the war alive. If that couldn't earn brownie points for the ex-missing nin from Gaara, then nothing could.

More eerie silence.

Deciding to take a chance that maybe the Uchiha would be willing to explain why Naruto and he wanted to have this meeting early, Tsunade was about to question the man then stopped.

Because she heard something she thought she would never hear again.

Someone was knocking on her Kami be damned window. Only one person ever did that and he wasn't here anymore to do that. So, who was the dead man that had the stones to so disrespectfully try to gain entry to her office?

She really shouldn't have been surprised by the answer.

Naruto was crouched over on the windowsill, balancing on his toes, knocking on the window with his traditional grin. Little brat definitely looked like a fox with those whisker marks stretched and his eyes squinted. Maybe those rumors the civilians whispered about Naruto being like the Kyūbi had some merit after all. The brat and the fox probably thought it was hilarious now that they were friends apparently.

Tsunade put on a smile as she opened the door. "Hey there, brat. You look pretty good for someone who just got out of the hospital," she said sweetly.

All of a sudden Naruto felt as if he was in extreme danger. His senses were telling him that he should try to escape from this room right now.

"How would you like to go back there? Just for a quick examination of all your broken bones and bruises?" Tsunade said as she cracked her knuckles.

Naruto started to sweat for his life. For some reason the thought of fighting Madara again seemed like a good idea. Yea, he could fight Madara again and escape from this greater threat. All he would have to do is convince Sasuke to help out and he'd be set. The Uchiha would surely want another round with his ancestor. Sasuke always liked a good fight and watching him get slaughtered by Tsunade would not be a fight.

It would be a beat down.

"Now, now Tsunade. I think it's refreshing for something like this to happen every once in a while." The one who had said this was the Mizukage surprisingly. Mei had a small, amused smile on her face as she observed Naruto's panicked expression despite being part of the duo that took down Madara.

"Pfft. It's only refreshing if it only happens once in a while. This isn't the first time someone's used the window as a doorway. The last one was the brat's sensei, Jiraiya." Tsunade replied with a snort. She felt a need to take a bottle of sake and drink it at the memory of Jiraiya. While she was mostly past the point of mourning the man, the memory of him still stung and probably always would. Though she wouldn't push the memory away and give into despair. In a way she was happy that Naruto picked up the old pervert's habit. It was another legacy that Naruto could carry on in addition to being a sage and toad summoner.

Hopefully he wouldn't pick up being a pervert as another legacy.

Mei actually giggled at Tsunade's proclamation, covering her mouth with a hand like a gossip. Gaara again made no change in his expression, but if you looked closely, you might see his lip twitch. Sasuke had a slight smirk as he thought about how Naruto's antics seemed to have not lessened with age.

"Since Naruto is here, I believe we should start the meeting. Lady Hokage, if you would kindly contact the Tsuchikage and the Raikage." Gaara asked Tsunade. Despite fighting together with everyone, Gaara still preferred to refer to the other kages with their titles unlike Mei with Tsunade. Turning to Naruto, Gaara nodded his head in greeting and this time actually smiled to welcome his friend.

"Yes, we need to start." Sasuke spoke for the first time since entering the room. "But, before that," everyone turned towards him now, "Did you succeed in applying the seal, Naruto?"

Naruto nodded. "Just like Old Man Six Paths showed me. I slowed the progression of the chakra build up. Now, it'll take two months just to fill up one of the tomoe."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes in thought. "How many tomoe have been filled already?" At this point, the other three individuals were looking back and forth between Sasuke and Naruto.

Naruto looked down at the floor for a moment. "Three of them were filled when I woke up. They're pretty vicious chakra eaters, you know."

Sasuke grimly nodded before turning to Tsunade. "Can you get in contact with the other kage now? I and Naruto will explain the conclusion between Madara and ourselves as well as the current situation."

Tsunade glared at both of the boys before nodding stiffly and turned to the other wall. On the wall there were two monitors with multiple large and small cables extending from them and through the office door to a large chakra transceiver with shinobi maintaining the connection. The monitors themselves were two black boxes measuring about twenty inches by twenty inches each. After Tsunade sent out a chakra pulse through a seal on her desk, the monitors began to flicker on and off. After another minute the connection was established and two individuals appeared in the screens.

One was a man with dark skin and blond hair with matching facial hair. He looked stern and intimidating, but there was an air of sorrow around him. He only could be seen wearing a white coat and was left bare-chested to show his impressive physique. This man was the Raikage and leader of Kumo, A. The monitor next to him showed a small, old man. The old man's nose was large and pinkish while the rest of his face was wrinkled and aged. He wore a cloak of sorts that covered the rest of his outfit while his desk hid what little else there was. He was the Tsuchikage, Ōnoki.

"Greetings, Tsunade." Ōnoki replied with a small smirk. Ever since the war, Onoki seemed to have developed a sense of humor and enjoyed teasing the "wiper snappers" as he put it. Word had it that he was planning to retire soon and continue on in an advisory position while he mocked everyone. Damn old men and they're abundance of free time.

"Lady Hokage." A's reply was tinged with respect and exhaustion. The reason for the man's lack of enthusiasm and fire was that his adopted brother Killer B had died during the war. With Gyūki, the Hachibi, inside Naruto because Madara extracted him, B died. The only reason that Naruto was capable of surviving was because of his potent life energy and that Kurama's yin chakra along with the other biju were transferred to him. While Naruto knew the man was dead, it didn't hit him until this moment when he saw how hollow the Raikage looked. Naruto wished he could have had one more conversation with his temporary sensei.

"Hello to the both of you," Tsunade replied to their greetings while Gaara and Mei nodded in turn to the two men. Naruto and Sasuke inclined their heads in a show of respect. While the others in the room expected something like that out of Sasuke, they didn't think that Naruto would be so respectful. He was always so brash and straightforward. Either something had happened, was going to happen, or something was weighing heavily on his mind.

"We wanted to give our report and debrief all the kages on our fight with Madara Uchiha." Sasuke stated in a tone he used to use when addressing the Sandaime Hokage. "Permission to begin?"

"Granted," Tsunade said as this was her village and he was her shinobi…probably at least since he was back.

"Thank you, Godaime-sama." Sasuke said, obviously old habits can hit back quickly and hard. "After Konoha Jounin Might Gai was defeated by Madara Uchiha, we engaged the target. While we were indisposed, we were contacted by the chakra of the Sage of the Six Paths and met his avatar. He gave his assistance after explaining some information on the history of his sons" While that wasn't the whole truth, it wasn't a lie. No way were they going to get into how Naruto and Sasuke were essentially the reincarnations of the Sage's sons when they would get enough scrutiny just for being his apparent heirs.

This drew blank stares from the kages due to the absurdity of the statement. However, what could they say? Call the boy liars when Kakashi clearly reported seeing Sasuke with a Rinnegan in his left eye while Naruto's chakra form had the tomoe of the Sage on the back of the form's coat?

"How did the Sage give his assistance?" Gaara asked. While they could all guess, it was always good to get confirmation.

"The Sage of the Six Paths gave us chakra and techniques. For myself, the Sage awakened a true Rinnegan in my left eye unlike the pair that Pain, or rather Nagato, had from Madara. With this Rinnegan I am able to perform all the known techniques while also having a degree of space-time manipulation similar to the _Kamui_ (Authority of the Gods)." Sasuke replied. After Sasuke finished, they all looked towards Naruto for his explanation.

Naruto shrugged. "I got the old man's chakra." He said it so nonchalantly like it wasn't a big deal. Oh, I just received the chakra of the god/messiah figure of all shinobi and who knows what I can do with it, but it's pretty neat. "You could say that I have the sage's body and chakra while Sasuke has his eyes and techniques. Oh, I should explain what having his chakra means." Naruto added while scratching the back of his head with a grin. All the kages felt a line of sweat go down the side of their heads at the blonde's explanation so far.

"The Sage's chakra is made up of natural energy just like a normal sage's is, but what makes it special is that the chakra of the nine biju is also in it." Naruto stated.

This brought a small wave of shock and apprehension. "Are you saying that you are currently the jinchūriki of the Juubi, Naruto?" Tsunade questioned.

"No, but I'm as close to it as anyone is ever going to get now." Naruto answered with a shake of his head. "Inside of me, the nine biju are sleeping. Thanks to my dad, Kakashi, Obito, and Sakura, the consciousness of the biju was taken from Madara and transferred to me along with a spark of their chakra. Old Man Six Paths just gave me the push I needed to make it all work right. During the fight with Madara, the chakra he was leaking out was being absorbed by the biju inside me to fuel the sage mode and maintain their minds. By the end of the fight, it looks like they got enough to stay alive inside me. I'm the jinchūriki of the nine biju instead of the Juubi."

The sound of jaws dropping was heard throughout the room. While Sasuke having the Rinnegan was a big deal, they had all seen multiple Rinnegan users in action by this point. But, having all the biju in one host was unheard of. Naruto was correct to say that he was as close as anyone could get to being the Juubi's jinchūriki.

After a moment to reboot their minds at what they heard, the kages cleared their throats in permission for the two shinobi to continue.

"By sleeping, do you mean that the biju aren't conscious right now? Or are they just resting?" Onoki questioned.

"They're knocked out pretty hard. I think they barely got enough of their chakra back to be able to regenerate. I can feel them inside me though so I know they're okay." Naruto answered.

Onoki nodded.

"I'm glad that B's partner is with you, Naruto." A stated surprising everyone. "If there was anyone that he would have trusted him with, it would have been you." A paused then. "Continue your report, with your permission Lady Hokage."

Tsunade nodded.

Naruto cleared his throat indicating he would speak. "After we engaged Madara, the battle consisted of sage and eye techniques. While Sasuke and Madara held identical Rinnegan powers, Sasuke was able to use his to manipulate space-time and Madara had access to an ability that let him summon and invisible clone of himself. Sasuke was able to see it and I was able to sense it so eventually Madara found it to be useless. Madara was eventually able to reclaim his other Rinnegan eye from Obito and the fight carried in stalemate for some time."

"The reason for the stalemate was that Naruto and I both had roughly half the Sage of the Six Path's power each while Madara had the complete set. In addition to that, he was more experienced than either of us so he adjusted to the abilities faster. Our advantage was that since there was two of us, we were able to cover for one another and perform combination attacks. It took more time than we would have liked, but we eventually were able to slowly overwhelm him by countering his attacks and then attacking." Sasuke added.

They were close to the end of the battle now and the consequences of it. Both boys looked at the other and then nodded.

"Madara slowly became unstable as the battle progressed. While his compatibility with the Juubi was high due to the way his body was prepared, it was nowhere near the Sage of the Six Path's level. He started falling apart and losing control of his power. If the battle went on, the Juubi would have been released and Madara would have died either from us or from his power. He decided to take a third option. He used a technique called _Rin'ne no Mugen Fukkatsu_ (Infinite Rebirth of the Saṃsāra). From what I saw, it continuously ran the power of the Juubi through his body in a circuit until it would consume everything around him and implode or worse. Madara thought that if he was going to die again, he would at least take me and Naruto with him."

"And so we used our last resort." Naruto said as Sasuke finished.

"Last resort?" Onoki questioned. That didn't sound promising at all. If these youngsters had the power of the Sage of the Six Paths and still needed to resort something they called a "last resort", then it could only bode badly for the rest of the. The old Tsuchikage wasn't naïve enough to believe that, just because the boys seemed to be fine in front of him, that they weren't damaged in some unseen way.

"When we said that Sasuke was the one who got Old Man Six Path's techniques, we might have been exaggerating a little. I did learn how to use the _Gudōdama_ (Truth Seeking Ball) technique, but that was a given since you need to use Old Man Six Path's chakra for that. Those black weapons sure are useful by the way." Naruto chuckled while saying the last part before his face grew grim and Sasuke could be heard grinding his teeth.

"He taught us both one half of a sealing technique just in case it seemed that Madara wasn't going to be cooperative with going quietly," Sasuke answered though his grit teeth.

The group of kages frowned in curiosity. "What was so special about this sealing technique? While fūinjutsu is powerful and dangerous in its own right, I don't believe someone like Madara could have been sealed so easily." Mei stated, unusually serious.

"This sealing technique is probably the strongest of its kind in existence. Even the _Shiki Fūjin_ (Dead Demon Consuming Seal) that my dad used can't compare to it. He used it to seal off half of Kurama, the Kyūbi, into himself and the Shinigami. But, he still was grounded to one thing: this reality." Naruto began to answer leaving the kages shell shocked at what Naruto was implying.

"What we used was the _Satori Keihatsu no Nehan_(Nirvana of the Enlightened Lock). Instead of sealing Madara and the Juubi into something like a scroll or a person, we sealed him outside of reality and the cycle of reincarnation. Not even the _Edo Tensei _(Impure World Reincarnation) can bring him and the Juubi back or using my Rinnegan to call forth the Juubi's body." Sasuke continued though he clearly looked unhappy. "I was taught the handsigns and Naruto was shown how to mold the chakra for the sealing. It also took us both melding our chakra to work so we used my Susanoo as the medium while Naruto injected his chakra into it. While Madara's technique was expanding, we used the sealing technique and succeeded."

"But, there's an additional price to use the technique besides chakra."

"What was the price?" Tsunade asked, her face pale as she was gripping her hands together in front of her.

Naruto looked down, his eyes hidden by his bangs. Sasuke openly growled and turned away from the kages looking at them.

"Just like the _Edo Tensei _(Impure World Reincarnation) needs a dead body to be used, this technique also takes something from the user or rather it will take something." Sasuke stated with anger in his tone. "If you send someone away from this world, then the scales have to be balanced. The user is basically sending the target into non-existence and doing that destabilizes their own existence."

"Are you saying that both of your existences are at risk?" A asked. It would be troubling if the heroes of the war had sacrificed themselves, Morale would go down and Naruto was B's legacy. If there was anything A could do for the boy, he would.

"No…not both of us." Naruto quietly said. He then looked up at the kages and they saw his crestfallen expression. "Just me. I'm the one who supplied the chakra for the technique. Sasuke's fine, so you don't have to worry about him."

"Naruto…are you dying?" Tsunade questioned while shaking. She seemed to be barely holding back from crying. It just wasn't fair. They had won and it looked as if Naruto would pay for that victory with his life. It wouldn't even be by battle, but by his own technique as a price for saving everyone.

"No, I'm not dying. Me dying wouldn't balance out the distortion made by the technique. The price that I have to pay is similar to what happened to Madara-teme." Naruto said, trying to softly smile. "I'll have to leave this reality too."

* * *

**This is actually only the first half of the first chapter since when I was writing this, chapter one and two were put together. I separated them for the sake of not having a block of text for you all to read since that annoys me for some reason. **

**My goal for every chapter is to have a minimum of 5,000 words or so. This should give you all some substance to read every time I post. **

**Now the, stand by for chapter 2 (sorta)! **


	2. Farewell and Goodbye

**Here's the second half of the first chapter or the second chapter, whatever you wanna call it. **

**Enjoy it yall!**

* * *

Silence.

"It won't be like what happened to Madara," Naruto quickly added in the silence. "I won't be sent out of the cycle of reincarnation or be put into non-existence. I've just destabilized myself here and left... 'Pieces' of myself in another reality. You probably saw that my chakra levels were really low in the hospital even though I had plenty of time to recover. That's because my chakra is going towards this"

Naruto loosened the kimono top and let it fall around him with his sash keeping it around his waist. He then took off the mesh shirt and channeled a little chakra. The seals appeared on his body and he pointed to the top seal.

"This is the proof that the _Satori Keihatsu no Nehan _(Nirvana of the Enlightened Lock) worked. Any existence that becomes unstable tries to fix itself naturally. The problem here is that my existence here is damaged while the 'pieces' of it in the other place are relatively undamaged. So, this seal here connects me to those pieces and drains chakra from me to prepare me to make the leap to those 'pieces'."

Tsunade put her face into her hands at hearing that. She briefly wondered if this was worse. On one hand, Naruto wouldn't be dying of this and would live healthy and happy life hopefully. But, he would be leaving. Not just leaving Konoha, but this entire reality to never be seen again. She wouldn't see Naruto find love, settle down, or become Hokage like he always wanted. She wouldn't even have the opportunity to at least bury him or mourn him. Tears actually escaped her this time.

Gaara took the news badly himself. He was shaking and any materials in the room made from the earth could been breaking down into sand. His face had a pained expression, as if someone had stabbed him multiple times and he was barely holding on. The man who had shown him how to truly live and gain the admiration of his people was being forced to abandon everything he knew and loved after a life of struggling to gain acknowledgment.

A looked torn. Much like Tsunade, he was wondering how to feel about this. B's legacy would not die, but neither would he be here. He cursed the fate that jinchūriki seemed to have of never being able to attain happiness for any length of time. B was harassed for much of his life and only in recent years had he been accepted by the majority of Kumo. Then the war happened. Now Naruto also was having his happiness and peace taken from him before he could enjoy them.

Mei looked pained. While she was not close to Naruto, she had heard stories and rumors of his strength and accomplishments. She would have been working closely with him for the rest of their lives most likely as he was a hero of the war and a likely candidate for Hokage. To lose such a person because the situation was depressing and heart breaking. She understood the pain of having your friends and family torn from you because of outside factors due to the civil war she fought in to become Mizukage.

Onoki just looked on solemnly. He understood that in war, there had to be sacrifices even in victory. He was not happy about it even though Naruto was the son of his village's most hated enemy. The war had shown them all the cooperation and peace between the villages was possible and he would not let old grudges stop that. As the Tsuchikage, he would honor what Naruto had done for the sake of protecting everything and everyone as a hero and warrior for peace. The boy would have his everlasting respect and, if he could help it, the respect of every generation after this.

Sasuke just looked pissed. It didn't sit well with him at all that his best friend that he had just reconciled with now had to leave himself. Damn Madara… Even though the Sage of the Six Paths had said there was nothing that could be done, Sasuke still held out hope. Maybe there was something he could think of. He was so called genius for Kami's sake! He had been apprenticed by Orochimaru, a man known for his ability to find knowledge and create techniques! Hell, Orochimaru himself was back so maybe he could be bribed. Or threatened. Sasuke wasn't going to be picky about which if one worked.

"According to Old Man Six Paths, there isn't anything that can be done to stop this or fix me. But, he did give me some time before I have to leave." Naruto said as he pointed to the ring of sealing script around the eye-like seal. "This limits the chakra that can get into the seal. When all of the tomoe are filled, the seal will relocate me and everything that doesn't have chakra, or at least my chakra, with me. It should take about two months to fill in a tomoe and there are six left. I have roughly a year."

"Naruto, you forgot to mention the side effect," Sasuke added in as he tried to calm himself.

"Oh yea. I can't use that much chakra right now. Since my control of chakra isn't up there with my other skills, any excess chakra I use in my jutsu gets picked up by the seal. That'll just leave me less time here." Naruto stated.

Gaara seemed to have gathered his wits and decided to ask a question. "What do you plan to do now?" Would Naruto try to find a way to stop the process even though the Sage of the Six Paths had already stated there was nothing to be done about it?

At that question, Naruto actually brightened a bit. "I have thought about it. I think… I'm going to prepare." Everyone took another shock, even Sasuke at that reply. "I think that this is a sign or something really. We brought peace here and now there's nothing for me to really do besides become Hokage. And even if I did become Hokage, I'd just regulate the peace and go through paperwork. I already have the acknowledgment I always wanted too. But, if I go to another reality… I might be able to help them with their problems too. Sure, the world isn't ideal here now either, but I think we're going in the right direction." Naruto smiled. "I also want to spend some time with my friends before I have to leave. I want to have some good memories of my last year here."

"Naruto… are you sure about that?" Sasuke asked. He knew Naruto to never give up, but here he was doing that just that. "Are you going to give up just like that?" He couldn't keep out a trace of anger in his question.

"I don't think it's that I'm giving up. I think… I just know that his is the right thing to do. This is supposed to happen and if it has to happen, then I'm going to be ready. If there's one thing that all this fighting taught me, it's that I have to be ready for whatever happens. I still have the dream my friends, family, and sensei have passed down to me. A world where people try to understand each other and where peace can thrive. I want to do what I can." Naruto answered resolutely.

Sasuke stilled looked unconvinced but nodded. He would still try to find a way to help his friend.

* * *

And time passed. The first few days were difficult for Naruto and, by extension, Sasuke as they informed their friends about what had happened. Sakura took it the hardest with Hinata coming in close as second. Team 7 had been reunited, but not in the way that they had wanted nor for as long as they wanted. Naruto had decided to not continue being an active ninja due to the fact that chakra use would decrease the amount of time he had and so he could travel the continent and countries. Naruto wanted to gain as many reminders of his time here and knowledge of things he could learn to do when he arrived wherever he was going.

During the time he had left, Naruto traveled to the other countries every few weeks to boost the morale of the people and to collect any worthwhile techniques and items. Sasuke followed him on these trips along with Sakura who insisted that they make use of the time they had left to be together. Even though there was no trouble on the road to these places, Naruto still trained. Well, physically and mentally at least. He needed to stay in tip top shape physically and he knew he was lacking severely in the knowledge department. So, he read a lot of scrolls.

The first thing he did was study up on fūinjutsu. Sasuke had tried to find a way for Naruto to stay, but couldn't find anything. However, this left a veritable treasure trove of sealing knowledge available to Naruto that Sasuke ended up giving to the blond out of anger of not finding anything to help his friend. He was not a master by any means yet, but that was because of a lack of experience. Naruto needed to work on his own theories now and find his own style rather than read a scroll on it. In honor of his father and Sasuke now, Naruto focused on space-time fūinjutsu as he saw how powerful it was in their hands. Not to mention Obito's technique of letting everything pass through him annoyed Naruto to this day and he wanted to find a way to replicate it.

Next, was collecting a library of jutsu. During the battle against Madara, Naruto was able to use multiple chakra natures in addition to own wind element and decided he should use what he had. Shukaku, Son Gokū, and Kokuō gave him an earth affinity, Matatabi and Son Gokū a fire affinity, Isobu, Saiken, and Gyūki a water affinity, and Gyūki and Chomei a lightening affinity. There were sub-elements and combinations from the biju as well such as the magnet release from Shukaku and the lava release from Son Gokū as well. Surprisingly, Kurama himself held the affinity for yin-yang release, but was incapable of passing it onto Naruto until he had rejoined with his other half. Naruto would be capable of using more elements easily now and it would give him an edge, but it was not perfect. Naruto had not been bonded to the biju for a long period of time yet, so the affinities would take time to develop themselves without aid from the biju. As they were sleeping, progress was going at a snail's pace. Kurama's yin-yang affinity was probably within his grasp already, but he had no way of knowing how to use it without the fox's help. Plus he wasn't using any ninjutsu right now anyway, thus he only had a huge stockpile of scrolls and potential.

The items he bought and received during the trips were mostly just souvenirs and held no real purpose for the most part. Though Naruto had received a rather surprising and interesting gift from the Raikage A when he had passed through Kumo. Samehada was still in B's possession when he had died and was collected along with B's body. The Mizukage had made no move to ask for the sword back as they were all allies now and there were plans to train all the villages' ninja into one, unified force. Property and techniques were being traded in measures of good will and clans from various villages were meeting as well. A had given the shark skin sword to Naruto for safe keeping initially as he thought that B would have wanted the blond to have it and so Naruto could pass it on to someone who he and the sword found worthy.

It was a shock to everyone when Samehada actually had refused to be sealed before it vibrated and growled in the boy's grip. Sakura had hypothesized that Samehada felt the remains of B's chakra in Gyūki who was sealed inside Naruto. This led to Samehada sampling the rest of Naruto's chakra and found it to be delectable and thus had chosen Naruto as its next wielder. This led to Naruto looking for someone to teach him the basic of kenjutsu, though Samehada's size and weight made it better suited to bashing and using strength rather than skill so Naruto quickly gave up on that route. The sword eventually let itself be sealed when it was satisfied that Naruto would not abandon it. Naruto's shock was quickly replaced with a sense of comradeship with the sword since it was as much a glutton for chakra as he was for ramen.

Having a year to study and focus on something serious in a casual setting finally let Naruto mature also. He became more like his father personality wise, though his mother's fire would still burn up when he eventually was angered. It took Sakura the longest to get used to this new Naruto as Sasuke had seen snippets of him during the fight against Madara and had been absent from their lives for a few years. Naruto had also decided to keep using the outfit that he had been given in the hospital as he thought it suited him and grew his hair out since he decided he'd like to see what it felt like without his headband keeping it all out of his face. Many of the people who had known the Yondaime Hokage had come to wonder if this was Naruto would look and act like if his parents had been in his life from the start. Though the changes were welcome and attracted some more attention to the blond. This attention came in the form of women surprisingly.

As a hero of the war, Naruto's already high status had ascended into legend. This with his good lucks had cemented his position as one of the most desirable men in all the countries who was only rivaled by Sasuke. Despite Naruto's desire to be acknowledged and respected, he had never put thought into how he would deal with female attention on this level and thus went to Sasuke for help. However, Sasuke had his own horde of potential lovers to deal with and thus gave the blond only one piece of advice.

"I don't have to deal with them if I can just outrun you and let you deal with them."

The teme seemed to have found a sense of humor. Naruto wasn't sure he liked that.

Jiraiya was probably cat calling down from the heavens in pride for his godson and cursing his name at the same time. The pride was for the sheer amount of beautiful women who wanted to pursue the blond and the cursing was for how Naruto had not anything with them. The reasons for that were: one) he was leaving the reality he was in soon and a real relationship would only end in tears no matter what, two) Naruto didn't know any of them and had been taught to respect women either through the laws of society or Sakura and Tsunade's fists of justice, and three) Sakura and Tsunade's fists of justice once more because they were that scary when they first told him not to lead any girl on just for pleasure.

It was for these reasons that he finally confronted Hinata about her confession to him during Pain's attack on Konoha. Naruto told the blue-haired heiress of the Hyūga that he was grateful for the strength her feelings for him gave him, but could not accept or return them. When asked if it was because he would not be able to stay, he answered that it wasn't. Naruto, while believing that the girl was beautiful and kind, did have that kind of attraction for her. Even if he did, he told her he still could not accept her feelings because he thought it would be cruel to them both to have a taste of a real relationship only for it to be torn from them. Naruto encouraged the girl to find love beyond him and to have a happy life for both of their sakes. While Hinata had cried, she accepted his words and thanked him for inspiring her all these years. She confessed that a part would always love him and to not forget that.

That is not to say that Naruto did not become familiar with the fairer sex during his last year. It was surprisingly Mei Terumi who was responsible for that. While visiting Kirigakure, he spent much of his time with the Mizukage due to trying to help with whatever he could before he left and because she took it upon herself to teach him water ninjutsu while trying to see if he could mimic her version of lava release. He had actually spent four of his twelve months in that village alone because of complexity of the element and thus needed to study under a master, more so because he could not actually practice the techniques. This gave enough time for the two to understand each other and bond over the similarities in their lives. Both lost people they cherished and opportunities because of war, were left without family, and strived to gain acknowledgment despite the negative views people had on them or their village. The teasing and flirting of the Mizukage slowly were returned by a less and less flustered Naruto until it wasn't just for fun. One day, they both realized they meant the words and after a frustrating day of going through techniques, they got drunk and confessed mutual attraction.

This led to a night of passionate instruction from the Mizukage to Naruto. In the morning, after seeing that he was not in his own bed and noticing a naked and auburn-haired woman next to him, Naruto felt extremely guilty. When Mei had woken up, Naruto confronted her about the past night and apologized. Mei simply smacked him upside the head for apologizing and explained that she understood that a relationship would be impossible. She then emphasized that she wasn't looking for anything long term and that she would kill him if he didn't stop being stupid. A short and sweet affair was enough for her.

Naruto always did like forceful and strong women.

Then came the day that Naruto would leave the Elemental Nations and the world.

* * *

Since Konoha was Naruto's home village, his sendoff would happen there. The village was absolutely packed with so many people that the ninjas were forced to stand on rooftops and walls just so there was enough room. The even would take place in front of the Hokage's Tower where the kages and Naruto's friends would stand on the roof for everyone to see. Naruto had yet to arrive and the same could be said for the Mizukage. Though no one suspected anything or even connected their absences.

The reason for that was that the two had decided to keep their relationship in the dark. The only people who knew about their relationship were Sasuke, Sakura, and Tsunade. Sasuke and Sakura found out due to Naruto staying in the same small house while staying at Kirigakure. It was hard to keep something like a relationship secret from your roommates when they notice you leaving and not coming back at night when the only reason you leave is to visit a certain kage. Especially when they sneak out and catch you with said kage lying on her back on a desk with her legs wrapped around your waist. That was interesting to explain. At least they hadn't found out the way Tsunade had.

Tsunade had decided that she needed to visit the Mizukage in person to discuss alliance plans. Unofficially though, Tsunade wanted to visit Naruto and surprise him. She thought it would be funny to show up at the Mizukage's office window the same way Naruto did with hers. Tsunade arrived just in time to see Mei disrobing Naruto to share in her naked glory.

The shout of "Pervert!" could be heard throughout all of Water Country.

Too bad Tsunade didn't know how accurate her accusation had been at the time. Ever since Mei had shown Naruto the wonderful pros of being with a woman, his admiration for the fairer sex had increased exponentially. While he wasn't as forward and honest with it as Jiraiya, Naruto had joined the legion of perverts that was made up of his idols and sensei. On a side note, he had learned that while B was much like him when it came to women and liked to rap about it. It had gotten to the point that Naruto had picked up a copy of Icha Icha Paradise and enjoyed it. Jiraiya's student had finally succeeded his master in everything that had mattered to the deceased Toad Sage.

While everyone was waiting for the two late arrivals, the two in question were spending their time having one last encounter in Naruto's old room. The apartment had been maintained for when Naruto was in Konoha even though Sasuke insisted he and Sakura move into the old Uchiha Clan Compound so they could maximize the time they had together. This left his apartment more of a storage space than a living environment. Though it still had a bed and therefore useable for a proper farewell between the two.

"You know," Mei began as she was catching her breath, "I will miss you after this. You're such a fine specimen." The beautiful kage stood up from the bed and let the sheet she had wrapped around her fall. She then went around the room and picked up her clothing from among the empty shelves and leftover scrolls in the room. Naruto watched her, amused as she bent over to pick up something from the floor. Ah, if only he had let the Ero-Sennin talk him into this kind of thing earlier. Granted he would never have been as open to any woman as Jiraiya had been. Naruto needed someone he could possibly have a relationship with even just to hook up with.

"You make it sound like I'm just an experiment. I know we have good chemistry between us, but I didn't think you'd take that literally," Naruto said as Mei put her undergarments on. He stood up himself and found his boxers to put on as Mei focused on putting her mesh tights on.

"Oh, Naruto. Don't tell me you're feeling insecure." Mei chuckled a little as she quickly got to putting her dress on. "I thought I just got through expressing my feelings to you and I'm afraid we don't have time for an encore. Unless…Do you plan to show your romantic side to me and fade away in my arms? The final embrace of our passions…" Her voice became sly and seductive, her gaze sultry and licentious.

"Afraid that as much as I want to, we're expected somewhere. And I don't fancy being caught by every ninja in the Elemental Nations with pants down. Actually, I don't care about being caught. I care about you being caught; any man besides me who sees your body would probably melt from the heat you give off." Naruto tied the orange sash around the blue kimono top and adjusted his shinobi sandals. He then looked into a mirror that had been added the room as he liked having one in every room he spent time in now. He liked to check up on the seal as often as he could and a mirror was the only option since he wouldn't make shadow clones.

Kami, his chakra control would probably be shit when he started using it again. His techniques would probably be rusty too.

Naruto shook his head and observed the seal. After the sixth tomoe had been filled in, the sheer amount of chakra in the seal left it visible whether he wanted it to be or not. Normally, the backing of his mesh shirt would keep it from being seen, but Mei had talked him into wearing a mesh shirt without the backing that left his skin visible. The kimono top still covered most of his chest, but his upper chest was now open for everyone to see. It only increased his female fan's enthusiasm and Naruto thought that Mei liked that more than how much she thought he looked good like that.

The seal now only had one tomoe to be filled. While Naruto didn't feel the previous tomoe being filled and had to regularly check to see if another had turned dark, he could actually feel the pressure of the last tomoe taking its fill of his chakra. It was almost time now. If Naruto wanted to make it to his send off and give his farewell, they had to leave now. Turning to a corner of the room, Naruto picked up a long, white coat with blue waves decorating the bottom and sleeves. The inside of it was colored a deep blue as well and had several lines of sealing script in it for storage and other features. The coat had been a gift from Mei after he had finished learning under her and reminder for him of her. Next, was a large sealing scroll that reminded him of the one Jiraiya had used and the one he himself had when he first started using Sage Mode. Naruto used it to seal all the other various scrolls and items he wanted to take with him rather than taking a bag.

He really felt like he had become a younger, sexier, and more balanced version of Jiraiya at this point. Actually, Tsunade once said Minato Namikaze had said that same thing when he became Hokage according to rumor.

Naruto and Mei finished putting themselves together and left the apartment. They quickly encountered ninjas that were part of the gathered crowd and were bowed to or called to in respect. Idol worship for some reason blinded them to the fact that they had arrived together and were extremely close. And these people were supposed to be ninjas. Oh well.

They both arrived at the Hokage's Tower rooftop and were greeted by the others there. One person particular, Kiba Inuzuka, took a sniff of the air as they arrived and his eyes widened. The boy looked from Naruto to Mei and back with a growing blush. That slowly morphed into a knowing grin as he looked towards a tall, silver-haired man who's hair defied gravity. The man felt Kiba's gaze and gave a subtle nod with a thumbs up. An old pervert and a hormonal dog; Natural allies.

"Now where have you two been?" Onoki asked with the tiniest of smirks. Damn Old Man probably actually knew about their relationship just from watching them somehow.

"I just wanted to give Naruto his farewell before we arrived. After all, a sensei must shower their disciple with praise regularly when they perform to satisfaction." Mei said that all with a smirk and sultry voice while giving Naruto a wink.

The action didn't go unnoticed by any of them and those who didn't know about their relationship gave a small blush at the implication. Hinata's gaze though had a hint of disapproval and jealousy. She had noticed that Naruto had stayed in Kirigakure longer than the others and she had her suspicions because of it. Let it never be said that a woman's intuition was wrong when it came to matters of love.

Tsunade had a small smirk. Despite how she round out about Naruto and Mei's relationship, she was happy that her distant relative and fellow blond had found happiness in his remaining time. "Naruto, I think you should say a few words to the people who gathered here. You already gave your good-byes to everyone else."

"I bet he did," Onoki muttered under his breath with a wheezy snicker while glancing at Mei. "Though I think a certain female kage got the most…physical one."

Too bad all ninja's have heightened sense due to their constant use of chakra and the ones standing on the roof were among the best of the best. Hinata definitely heard it and she was so red, it was like a throwback to her childhood.

Tsunade herself chuckled and then turned to face the crowd. "Fellow shinobi! Fellow country-men! Allies and friends! We're here to commemorate the defeat of Madara and our victory in the Fourth Great Shinobi War!" The crowd cheered and yelled at her declaration. "We may have lost friends and family, lovers and teammates, but they did not die in vain. They believed in the world and fought to keep it as it was! But, now we have something to be even more thankful for! They fought for the chance we all saw for true peace!"

"And so, today we announce that the five great villages will no longer be separate! We will become a unified force! One village! One force of shinobi and kunoichi! One future where peace is a reality!" Tsunade roared with all her might as the gathered audience smiled and shook with joy. "It may not happen today or tomorrow, but one day, our descendants will look back and say that this day was the beginning!"

"However, we have not finished paying for this chance," she said with a somber expression. The crowd then stilled as they waited for whatever bad news the Hokage had for them. "To defeat Madara Uchiha, the two heroes of the war, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, used a forbidden fūinjutsu. This technique did not seal Madara into an object or person, but outside of the cycle of reincarnation and this reality along with the Juubi." Tsunade took a deep breath.

"To use this technique, Naruto Uzumaki was forced to offer up his life in our world as payment. He will not die, but neither will he remain here with us."

The crowd's reaction was immediate. Their faces contorted in shock and then they grimaced. Even the citizens of Konoha who had still been somewhat cold to him were somewhat perturbed by the news.

"This is his final day and I would like you all to hear out his final words to us!" Tsunade asked and ordered at the same time.

Tsunade turned to Naruto and nodded. Naruto nodded back and stepped forward to give his goodbye to the people of the Elemental Nations.

As he gazed out at the crowd, they looked back at him and he nervously chuckled while scratching the back of his head. "Yo!" he said mimicking Kakashi. The crowd all felt a drop of sweat flow down the side of their head at his nonchalant attitude while the people on the roof either chuckled expecting it or groaned. Kakashi's reaction was the most interesting as he pumped his fist discreetly behind him.

'I got one of them, Minato-sensei!' he cried tears of pride in his mind.

"You know, I was never really good at talking about how I was feeling. So I don't think I'll start now. But, I was always good at one thing. A lot of you probably think that it's talking my mouth off or shouting. Some of you might even think that it's being a great ninja. A little of you might even think I'm a genius or something like that. I just wanted to let you all know that it's more than any of that!" Naruto shouted to the crowd.

"I always wanted to be acknowledged. I shouted and yelled everyday just so someone would notice me. But that wasn't enough. So I tried to think of who was the most respected and acknowledged person in the village and saw that it was the Hokage. So I made that my dream and shouted it every day so that even I would believe I could do it. To do it, I had to get stronger and I tried to find my own way to get there."

Naruto paused.

"I found my answer on my first C-rank. I met the Demon of the Mist, Zabuza, and his apprentice, Haku. While I was out training during a break in the mission, I met Haku out of his disguise. He told me something: When people fight for what's precious to them is when they become truly strong. He told me that I would become strong. So I fought for the people that were precious to me and slowly I learned that you don't become Hokage for the respect and acknowledgment. You become a Hokage or any kage because you want to protect those that are important to you! And I succeeded in that! I protected those that are important to me as best I could with my own hands!"

The crowd cheered at Naruto's enthusiasm and the pride in his voice.

"My dream was to become Hokage, but it's grown into something more! My sensei and idols wanted to bring one thing to this world; they wanted to make a world where there is peace! Madara wanted a world where everything was fabricated and controlled! Tell me, is that peace!?"

Exclamations of "No" and even worse were shouted out.

"You're right! That isn't peace! Peace isn't something that's forced on you, but it's also not the absence of fighting or disagreements! Peace is a world where we can all share our feelings and reasons for fighting together! It's a world where we try to understand each other! I think that we're on the right path to a world like that!" Naruto shouted to the crowd and they roared in return.

"I protected this village and world the best I could! Now it's up to the rest of you to continue that and make it even better! I have faith in all of you, my precious comrades, friends, and family! The Will of Fire burns not only in me, but in all of us!"

"UUWWWOOOAAAHHHH!" the crowd yelled at the top of their lungs.

Then one shouted something that made Naruto's eyes water with pride and happiness.

"Rokudaime! Rokudaime!" a lone Konoha shinobi began to yell and those around him began to pick up the chant. As the ninjas from the other villages picked up the chant, the shouting changed to "Rokudaime Hokage! Rokudaime Hokage!"

Naruto turned to Tsunade and saw tears sliding down her face as she shook her head in pride then looked Naruto in his cerulean blue eyes and gave a single nod before she shouted "Rokudaime!"

The kages and his friends on the roof each gave another nod to Naruto before they joined in giving one shout.

Naruto turned one more time to the crowd. They stopped their cheering and waited for his words.

"Alright then! This is my first and last order as Rokudaime Hokage! All of you! If you have something precious, then protect it with both arms! Work towards a future together with the person standing next to you that will make our children proud! Keep our Will of Fire burning strong! For all of your years of support and work, I want to thank you all and I'm proud to call myself a shinobi!"

Naruto turned to walk back towards the others as the crowd gave their loudest cheer yet. They wouldn't stop even after minutes had passed.

Suddenly, Naruto paused and gripped the base of his throat. A pulse seemed to emanate from him that alerted the people on the roof as to what was happening. Naruto looked at each of them a small smile beginning to appear on his face. The final moment had come and he felt the seal he put on so long ago break as his chakra rushed to the eye-like seal.

"It's time," Naruto simply said.

Most of the rookies and kage stood back as they decided beforehand to give Naruto's last moments to those he was closest to. Tsunade, Mei, Gaara, Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura stepped forward to Naruto.

"Time to go huh? Remember, Naruto, to eat three meals a day, don't drink, and don't gamble. Just don't copy me too much, alright?" Tsunade said through hiccups from crying. "Oh, and find somewhere to settle down too. Don't wander around too long like that White-Haired Pervert of a sensei you had." She then pulled Naruto into a tight hug for a moment and then let him go to take one last look at him.

His feet had already begun fading as if he was being blown away on the wind.

"Alright, Baa-chan." Naruto simply agreed as his eyes began to water again.

"Naruto…Good luck." Gaara began as he gazed at the blond intensely, sadness and bitter acceptance just barely making themselves known in his expression. "I want you to know that you always the one I looked towards for inspiration. A comrade and friend that I can never replace or find again. You will always be a brother in bonds to me." In a rare moment of emotion and affection, the young Kazekage brought Naruto into a brief hug as well and tightened his grip for a moment before letting go and taking his place in the group again.

Naruto merely nodded as he shook slightly and a tear escaped him despite his smile.

Kakashi was next. His expression seemed blank, but there was a rigidness to his stance that wasn't usually there. "Naruto, I want you to know how proud I am of you. If your father were still alive or had just lived a few more years, we would've been sibling disciples… Even without that, you were a part of my first team of genins. We share a bond between student and sensei that will never break even when I have nothing left to teach you. I'm glad I met you, Rokudaime." He then ruffled Naruto's hair with his hand, his two perfectly healthy eyes crinkled in a smile.

Naruto silently accepted as a few more tears fell down his face.

Sakura then came forward as Kakashi stepped back. Naruto's legs were now completely gone. "Hey, Naruto," Sakura began. She was shaking and willing herself not to cry yet. "So…You kept your promise and I kept mine, huh? You brought Sasuke back and I wasn't a burden this time!" a small laugh escaped her. "I… I wish that we could be team seven again. I want us to be able to do missions again!" she shouted. "But, that'll never happen now… I'll remember it all though. The times we all had together are precious to me. I hope that you'll be happy wherever you end up, Naruto." Sakura finished quietly as she brought the blond in and embraced him before letting him go as her tears finally started to fall.

Mei came forward put a shoulder on the pink-haired girl. Sakura nodded and went back to the group behind her. Mei then turned her attention towards Naruto.

"So, here we are." She began softly

"Yea, here we are." Naruto responded. Naruto brought a hand up to caress her cheek, but it began to fade as soon as it touched her skin. He was down to most of his chest, one arm whole and the other fading, and his head. "I'll miss you," he stated.

Mei nodded as she tried to rein in her emotions, barely succeeding.

Without saying anything, she brought both of her hands up Naruto's face and brought him closer to her. The crowd behind them thinking that she was only going to give the blond another hug as he was her student didn't expect what was going to happen. The Mizukage brought Naruto's face to hers and planted a firm kiss on his lips.

Naruto brought his remaining hand up to Mei's cheeks and put more strength into the kiss. Even in this situation, he felt his blood begin to heat up despite missing most of his body. The soft feeling of Mei's lips on his made him forget himself for just a moment. The pleasant heat disappeared when she pulled away.

"You know, we could have had something if you could stay," she stated sadly. "But, I won't regret what little we did have. I don't want you to either. Promise me that you won't hold back for my sake. Find someone special to share your life with and be happy." Then she smirked and decided to make one more licentious comment. "After all, it would be a shame for women in your new world to miss out on the results of the training I gave you."

Naruto was silent for a moment then nodded with a small grin. The old Naruto probably would have made a bigger deal about her request, but he was mature enough now to know that she was right. While he could honestly say he felt something for the beautiful woman in front of him, there was nothing he could do about it. He could not deny himself happiness for the sake of something that could never be. "I will, Mei-chan. It's a promise, but you have to do the same." He felt a small sense of foreboding as Mei twitched then it vanished.

"Naruto…I like you, but shut up. I'll kill you." She stated sweetly as she walked away, sashaying her hips to tease him one last time.

Naruto shook his head as the last person stepped up to him.

"Dobe."

"Teme."

A moment of silence followed as the rest of Naruto's chest disappeared and the top of his hair began to fade. His remaining arm was starting to fade as well from the elbow and spreading.

"I don't think there's much we can say is there? We've always shared our thoughts through our fists and we've reached an understanding." Sasuke said as he extended his fist. He had seen Naruto do this with multiple people and had once asked about it. Naruto had said he had been shown it by B and that he found it helped him understand people's feelings. "This is the last time our fists will meet. Not in a fight, but in farewell. Good-bye…Naruto."

Naruto extended his own fist and pounded Sasuke. From it, he felt Sasuke's brotherly bond and determination to succeed in making a world where he, Sasuke, and Itachi would have been happy and content.

"Yea… Good-bye, Sasuke." Naruto replied as his fist faded

Naruto closed his eyes then. The last sight he saw was his friends, his family, looking at him in admiration, gratitude, happiness, sadness, and love. He may have entered this world alone, but he was leaving it with people besides him.

'All of you…thank you. I'll do my best no matter where I end up. So, please, do your best too.'

And so Naruto Uzumaki faded away, never to be seen again, but never forgotten.

* * *

**There you guys go! Not sure when I'll be posting the next chapter, but I'll be working on it! Till next time!**


	3. Say Hello to Mr Whiskers!

**Hello all! Sorry for the very late update. I would like to say that it was due to me being very busy, but I'd a quarter lying. While I have been busy, I was also being damn lazy, thinking about other ideas, and spending time with my girlfriend. Actually, you can thank her for this chapter being out now since she threatened me if I didn't finish it for you guys by tonight. Anyway, this chapter is Naruto's introduction to Fiore and setting some stuff up. Now, before I lament on how I own nothing cool like Naruto or Fairy Tale, I must give you all some information and choices. **

**First of all, that driving portion of the story. Pairings! A lot of you have stated you want Erza as the pairing choice. Some have said they want anyone, but Erza. Let me give you all some middle ground and my opinion. While I like Erza, I'm not sure I want her as the pairing choice. I would rather have someone minor so I can play around more with the story. Now, if you are dead set on Erza, give me a reason for why it has to be her. I don't mean something like "She's the best". I mean give me a decent, logical reason why. Now, for my choices that I personally would love to write. **

**My top picks are:  
Kagura, Ikaruga, Millianna, anddd Cana.  
Please pick one of these if you can't give me a decent argument for Erza. Or suggest your own girl. **

**Next, some of you have expressed concern about Naruto possibly being too strong and steam rolling everyone. Don't worry about that. I gotchu guys. **

**Now then, onto the chapter!**

* * *

You know, hurtling through the boundaries of space-time through your own world can be extremely disorienting. Either you stop in an in-between pocket dimension that's barren of anything living or you just move from place to place without delay. It may sound cool and interesting, but it can make you nauseous, give you a migraine, make you bleed from all sorts of places, lose a body part, etc. Now, keeping that in mind, going through _multiple _boundaries of space-time of different worlds that each may or may not have their own pocket dimensions is downright _horrifying. _Seeing scenes of worlds that you won't ever exist in, creatures that defy explanation and comprehension, lands and oceans that float in the air with no support while feeling like you're being pulled by a cords wrapped around your whole body. All you can hear is the sound of ripping tapestries and Kami knows what else depending on where you're going through and the smell of burning flesh does not help. Actually, that smell might be him since the seal was burning through chakra so fast that it actually left burns across his body.

This shit is terrifying.

Naruto briefly wondered if Old Man Six Paths had been wrong about the consequences of the seal. Was his fate to be endlessly pulled through the realties that existed? Was this what he and Sasuke had condemned Madara to? The pull of the invisible cords was painful as they reeled him through yet another world. He strained to memorize what he had seen despite feeling like his limbs were about to be torn from him. All he managed to see though was a male teenager with orange hair wielding a long, black katana who fought against a man with a black cloak and white uniform. Their surroundings consisted of buildings built in the style of Konoha's clan compounds but all in a crystalized, white material. How strange.

'Glad this isn't my stop,' Naruto thought as he ripped through the dimension. He had no intention to being thrown into a fight right off the bat, especially after only training his physical attributes for a year.

Finally, after what seemed like passing through hundreds of realties and their pocket dimensions, Naruto felt the pull of the dimensional tethers lessen and the scenes of the passing worlds distorted into a blur of colors and twisting shapes. The sound of something being torn apart lessened and turned into whispers and then silence. The pull of the tethers disappeared completely and Naruto sighed in relief before he began feeling something else. That sensation of weightlessness, that pull in your gut, and your stomach jumping up into your mouth.

Naruto felt gravity.

"Oh, sh-AHHHHGGGHHHHHH!" he shouted as he began falling through the twisting void now. While less painful, Naruto wasn't used to falling without at least being able to judge how far he was going or being in control by using chakra to land safely. He currently had neither luxury and so started to panic and scream his lungs out. 'This is not what I was expecting when I was leaving! Why do all my adventures start out peaceful, but turn out like this!?' he questioned whatever deity had deigned to put him through this new torture.

Right as his training to keep calm in the face of disaster or his instinct to pull something off by the fly of his pants began to kick in, he stopped falling.

Only to land front first onto some solid tendril of his twisting surroundings. For something that was supposed to be in flux and unstable, space-time tendrils sure can take an impact. And give concussions, can't forget about the concussions. The only thing that probably saved the blond from being knocked unconscious was the fact that long term exposure to his chakra and constantly being injured had long ago increased his damage threshold and hardened his body to a degree. The pain didn't pass as quickly however and Naruto simply laid there while waiting for it to pass.

After a minute or two, Naruto got onto his hands and knees before sitting down with his legs crossed. So, he had finally stopped moving or falling and he counted that as progress. He looked around the distorted plane of existence he was currently in and pondered on if this was to be his new home or if this even counted as a reality. Those thoughts were cut short as he noticed that instead of simply still swirling around him, the area around him was simply still unstable portions of space-time. He was already in the correct reality, it was just that he wasn't completely settled in yet per se.

It would take just a little bit of time for his surroundings to stabilize themselves, or rather it would take a few more minutes to stabilize himself depending on your point of view. Naruto briefly wondered if Obito ever had this problem using his _Kamui_ (Authority of the Gods) after extended periods of time and if his form took some time to become a normal existence in the bounds of space-time again. He then shook his head and lamented the fact that he couldn't find a way to copy the Uchiha's ability to phase through objects with his fūinjutsu. He simply lacked a suitable medium to channel the ability through. His father's idea to use kunai for his _Hiraishin _(Flying Thunder God) technique worked because the metal of the kunai was chakra conductive and allowed him to hone in on them as a target while the formula on the handle took care of the space-time manipulation. Naruto would probably need something organic that had a yin-yang affinity suited for space-time manipulation to recreate Obito's ability.

Kurama might have something for him when the lazy fox woke up, but Naruto doubted it. The fox didn't seem to be the type for subtle techniques or formulas for space-time techniques that didn't include blowing something up. Maybe now that he could run practical trials, Naruto could try to recreate Obito's technique through the materials of this world? Assuming there were item here that were chakra conductive and could be used for space-time techniques.

Naruto cut his ponderings short as he felts his ears pop. During his time thinking, he had not noticed that the reality around him had finally stabilized. Or had he stabilized? Damn space-time intricacies… if the field didn't have so much promise and if it hadn't been shoved into his face so often, Naruto would probably stop his work right then and there and save what little sanity he had left. Shaking his head, Naruto decided that he needed to look over his surroundings and learn a little about where he was.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that he was actually in a forest. The trees and shrubbery around him were a healthy green and the grass was soft. While the trees were not as densely packed as around Konoha, they were still close enough that Naruto could jump from branch to branch without depending too much on his chakra to carry him. There was also plenty of wildlife around him in the form of animals and other plants like flowers. He could feel the beat of life around him because of his abilities as a sage, but there was something off.

When he had first become a sage, Naruto could only sense anything while in Sage Mode. After he had gained control over Kurama's chakra, he was able to sense negative emotions while using the fox's chakra. Both forms were independent of each other until the battle with Madara where he combined them both. It gave him a rudimentary version of his Six Paths Sage Mode that lacked the sheer power and techniques that came with his inheritance as Asura reincarnated, but he was able to sense the world around him more accurately than before. It was only after Naruto had joined with the nine biju and entered the Six Paths Sage Mode that the ability to sense others' power, emotions, and the wildlife around him stayed even in his base form.

Because of this, he felt that there was something different about the forest he was in when compared to the one surrounding Konoha. There was something surrounding everything the wildlife that wasn't natural energy, but rather another form of power. Naruto couldn't name it and assumed that it was either something unique to the forest or this reality itself. It wasn't harming him nor affecting him as far as he could tell, but he decided to be careful. Naruto uncrossed his legs, took a breath, and stood up to access his chakra for the first time in roughly a year.

The blond closed his eyes and willed the force of his physical and mental energies to merge and circulate through his chakra network.

That was a mistake.

Naruto had been called several things because of his vast reserves in the past that included, but were not limited to: Monster, Juggernaut, Stamina Freak, Living Chakra, and he was once compared to Kisame as a Tailess Tailed Beast despite having the Kyūbi. In addition to this, his control over his chakra had always been either subpar or just barely making average. Thus, his nicknames did fit him as he was a rampaging, chakra battery in his youth and for most of his recent battles. He liked to think that he had gotten better though during the fight with Madara as he had to carefully watch how much chakra he had in that marathon of a battle. Naruto always was great at adapting on the fly.

Now as he as he was trying to mold his chakra, he nearly doubled over in shock as the power he always had such a hard time controlling erupted to consume him in a haze of blue flames and wisps. He definitely had not had that much chakra before and it was extremely potent to top it off. Naruto attempted to reign it in and bring it under his control to simply reinforce his already impressive physical prowess. However, the wild power could not be brought in and simply continued to swirl around him. It was an extremely distressing discovery.

Deciding that it was a lost cause, Naruto simply cut off the flow of power instead of trying to control it. Standing there with a frown, Naruto tried to make sense of his predicament. While he had expected his loss of control at the very least since he had not actively molded or used his chakra in so long, this was just ridiculous. As he thought about the problem with little success, he decided to do what he excelled in; Naruto went back to the basics.

'How do you normally increase your reserves of chakra? You train your body to become physically stronger and increase your spiritual power by gaining experience. This also develops your chakra network and in the end increases your chakra capacity and how freely your chakra flows. But, I've only trained physically and haven't done any training that would make me more familiar with my techniques for experience… What other options are there?'

And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Or like being kicked off a cliff by your sensei.

Jinchūriki all naturally had higher chakra reserves because of the biju inside them. The beasts themselves were chakra with a consciousness bound to it and thus would break most things they were sealed into. When they were sealed into a human, the chakra of the biju would inevitably mix with their host and forcibly develop the host's chakra network. Because the biju were also originally part of the Juubi, the source of chakra, their presence inside their host was like a stimulant to their host's own chakra. Even without training, the jinchūriki's own chakra reserves would be higher than average for a jōnin and with active training could reach kage levels easily. And that was all from having one biju sealed inside a human.

What would happen if two were sealed into someone? What about three?

What about all nine?

Even if they were sleeping, the biju's chakra was still sealed inside him. Even if his body had grown accustomed to Kurama's influence on his chakra, it was not used to the presence of the other eight biju and was vulnerable to their influence. His reserves were, at his estimation, triple what they were during the battle against Madara before he had first joined with Kurama. In addition, his chakra coils were probably expanded even more to handle channeling that amount of power. Naruto would have likely felt the growth of his power if he hadn't been avoiding chakra use or if the seal that sent him here had not been eating away at him.

In short, his reserves were significantly larger and his control was at an all-time low. Channeling any chakra at the moment would only result in an explosion of power that, while it looked fearsome, was largely only good for show. There might be some techniques that were still open to him, but he had to experiment with them since it seemed that even reinforcing his body would be beyond him right now.

Frowning, Naruto shook his head of his current chakra issues. He had to decide what to do now that he had arrived in this new world.

New world…

"I'm really here, aren't I?"

After being distracted by his trip through the rift between worlds, the strange energy in the forest, and his chakra, the reality of his situation crashed down on him. He had left Konoha, the Elemental Nations, and his whole world behind. There was no Sasuke, Sakura, Tsunade, Kakashi, or anyone from his old life here. His past meant nothing here, his present history only amounted to a few minutes, and his future was cloudy. So many opportunities were lost to him now. Despite it no longer being a major goal, he had been the Hokage for a few moments and his reign was short. His relationship with Mei, whatever it was, would never grow into anything.

The last thought actually brought conflicting feelings within him. He had been attracted to the female kage and she to him, but they never put a name to what they had. Both knew that Naruto would not be a long term companion or even relationship option. They recognized that there was a chance for them to grow into a proper couple, but neither had taken it to that point. In the end, it amounted to enjoying the other's company and acting on it. Even in the end, Mei had said that she only had "liked" Naruto and that they could have had something if he had been able to stay. Her final request was to not dwell on her and to find someone else even.

All of his friends actually would want him to not focus on the past. While they would not want to be forgotten, they also would not have wanted Naruto to live in misery. So, Naruto would try to follow through with their wishes. He would mourn, but not let it rule him. He had always been optimistic since he had little choice with how dismal his life had been earlier. If he had no past history here, then he could build himself a new life here without any bias from others. Maybe find a quiet, little town somewhere and do what he could to make a living.

Yea, he could work with this. His old world was safe and in good hands, he had arrived safely to his new world and was in one piece. The only bad thing so far had been the issues with his chakra and he could probably work through those with training.

'Look at the positives, Naruto. Just look at the positives and you'll get by just fine.'

"Are you okay, mister?"

"WAGH!" Naruto yelped as he jumped in shock. Sadly, he channeled his chakra to jump back by reflex and ended up going much higher than he would have wanted. The visual flare up didn't happen this time since he only accessed it for an instant, but the amount and strength of the chakra caused him to shoot up into the air.

Where he promptly hit the first branch above him with a loud crack and came back down because of gravity.

"Wow, you jumped pretty high there, mister." The statement came from a young and cheery voice that was close to the face down blond. "Your head must hurt a lot," it said with a giggle.

"Ugh," groaned Naruto. He had his head pretty hard. While he had definitely taken harder hits in his life and ones that were much more deadly than hitting a tree, but there was something about hitting everyday objects outside a fight that still made it hurt. Shaking his head, Naruto looked to the source of the voice.

Somehow, a little girl of probably only eight or nine years had snuck up on him. She was wearing a plain, yellow dress made from a light fabric that hinted humble origins though it was well made. Her skin was tan from constant exposure to the sun though nowhere near his skin tone. She had dirty blonde hair and forest green eyes framed in a heart shaped face though she still retained her baby fat. Overall, she was a cute, little girl with a wide smile that shined in amusement. Though she did have a little dirt on her outfit, body, and in her hair that was in a loose ponytail.

"You awake, mister?" she questioned once more. Her voice had the curiosity that all children had and Naruto wondered if he was as enthusiastic in his youth. Hell, if anything, he was much more enthusiastic than this girl since no one could outdo his 'Flames of Youth'. Kami, he had spent too much time hanging out with Lee and Gai in his life and that sunset scene they used probably corrupted him. "Mister, are you awake? You must be awake cause your eye is acting funny, hehe."

"Yea… I'm awake. Just remembering something you're too young to know about." Naruto answered the little girl after controlling the twitch in his eye that was triggered by remembering the two men hugging in their green tights. He was not homophobic, but something about that scene was unnatural and the majority of the Elemental Nations agreed.

"You look sad again, mister! Tell Racheal what's wrong!" the girl demanded with a smile on her face. Naruto could already see that this girl was one of those people who constantly tried her best to be cheerful, though he wondered if it was real or just something to convince people like what he did when he was younger. Naruto then shook his head to free himself of thinking of his life back in Konoha so soon after just arriving to this world.

"I'm fine," He smiled at the girl. "So, your name is Racheal? Huh, what a weird name." Naruto chuckled since he had never heard of such a name in the Elemental Nations… Damn, there he went again.

The girl pouted and puffed her cheeks to their limit before retorting "Well, I think my name is cute! At least I don't have a funny voice." She then crossed her arms and then turned her head to the side. Aw, she was at the point in her life where she was learning how to tease people back.

Wait. Funny voice?

'Actually, how am I understanding her? It's not likely that this world would speak my language… Did traveling here do something to me besides trying to tear my arms and legs off?' Naruto questioned himself. 'Maybe I somehow adapted to the language because of the 'pieces' of me that were here before the 'rest' of me made it? Ugh, seal side-effects make no sense when you get to this level…'

"You sure frown a lot, Mr. Whiskers. Don't worry though! Rachael knows how to make you smile!" the girl exclaimed as she gripped Naruto's right hand and tried to get the blond to stand up. Sadly, Naruto was much too heavy for the child. His storage scroll probably was out of her level of strength alone!

Deciding to humor the girl and to see what would come out of this, Naruto helped Racheal by standing up and getting his hand out of her grip to clean his clothing of the grass and dirt.

"Alright, alright, I'm up. Lead the way, Rachael-chan!" Naruto said with this trademark grin.

"Chan?" Racheal tilted her head in confusion. "What does chan mean, Mr. Whiskers?"

Naruto promptly tripped at hearing the nickname again and in confusion about how honorifics seemed to not exist in this world just as he had started using them more in the past few months. I mean seriously, they either share a language or the seal side effect couldn't find an equivalent for that!?

'All that time fixing that habit gone for nothing…'

* * *

Naruto was led by Racheal through a maze of trees before they were on a small dirt road. Actually, it would more accurate to say that the dirt road was the remains of a great, cobbled road as there were various pieces of cobblestone around them as they walked down the path. They were surrounded by trees on both sides, though they were not the same as the ones that had surrounded them before. There were various gashes on them and most of them were missing their bigger branches. In some cases, the bark on the trees had been completely stripped and chunks were missing which lead Naruto to believe that it wasn't simple tools that had done the damage.

'Where is this girl leading me? Is it an ambush?'

"Just a bit more, Mr. Whiskers! The village I live in is right over this hill!" Racheal cheerfully stated as she held onto the blonde's hand, humming to herself. She didn't seem to care about the disrepair of the road or she was just used to it. It may have been this way since before she was even born for all Naruto knew. He would just have to see where the blonde girl was taking him and see what happened.

Racheal began to run and dragged Naruto with her, the older blond easily keeping pace with longer strides since he was far taller. The pair quickly made their way past the hill and brought the little blonde's village into view. Her face broke out into a large grin at the sight of it while Naruto's reaction was more conservative.

The reason for this was that, much like the road, the village seemed to be in state of ruin at the worst or in the middle of extreme repairs at the best. Most of the buildings had damaged walls or broken windows in one spot or another while some were completely abandoned due to the state of ruin they were in. The roads of the village were only dirt paths like the road to the village and Naruto theorized that the only reason there was no cobblestone was because the villagers had cleared it beforehand. The only signs of life were the fields of crops that clearly had priority over the buildings and a small amount of individuals that he couldn't make out from the current distance.

Shifting to a neutral expression, Naruto let Racheal lead him to the cluster of buildings and fields and decided to keep a cautious attitude for now. The village looked like it was on hard times and people in difficult situations tended to not be open to strangers.

Within a few minutes, they were at the broken down village and had attracted the attention of the villagers. Racheal paid no mind to the glances filled with suspicion and apprehension that villagers sent towards Naruto, the ninja was keenly aware that he was not welcome in the villagers' opinion. It somewhat reminded him of the Konoha of his youth except here it was indiscriminate dislike instead of a directed hatred. Naruto wasn't sure what he would do about it or if he even would do anything depending on what would happen in the next few hours.

Racheal hummed a quick tune to herself as she led Naruto down what was probably the main path of the village. She was aware of the stares her fellow villagers were giving Naruto and had chosen not to take heed of them. In her opinion, Mr. Whiskers seemed to be a good person since he just looked like one. And he seemed so sad when she first found him that she decided she wanted to help him. She was sure her older sister would agree and had brought him to the village.

No one interacted with them as if the presence of Naruto was a deterrent or they just naturally didn't want to interact with the chipper youth. Naruto sincerely hoped it was the former as he would probably end up teaching these people a lesson if they were ostracizing a little girl. Child neglect earns you an intimate conversation with a lower power rasengan in his book. Though he didn't know if he could even muster up enough control for a low power rasengan. Naruto would probably end up grinding whoever he used it on to a fine paste or just blow the surrounding area up from chakra destabilization.

Eh, maybe a good old punch in the face would suffice. Meanest right hook in the Elemental Nations as vouched for by countless past friends and foes alike.

"Here we are! This is where I live with my sister!" Racheal proudly announced as they arrived at a slightly worn, wooden cabin. It was in better shape than most of the village and the worn wood was a testament to how old it was. There were two floors and presumably a cellar due to the presence of a hatch on the side of the wooden structure. Naruto was also sure there was a garden of crops behind the girl's home since every home had a small garden to compliment the larger fields so that they could grow whatever they fancied besides the major foodstuffs. The only real fault that needed to be addressed was a few cracks in the windows, though it was better than missing the window completely.

"Let's go. I need to introduce you to my big sister." Racheal said as she once again took the lead and dragged Naruto with her around the cabin. Naruto was soon proven correct about there being a small garden in the back as well as the tools needed to maintain it. One of the tools, a small wheelbarrow, held a pile of dirt that a woman in her mid to late twenties was adding to. She looked like an older version of Racheal and thus Naruto assumed this was the younger girl's sister and twin. Besides age and development, Racheal's older sister held an air of caution that matched the other villagers when she noticed Naruto near Racheal, though she managed to rein it in when she saw that the girl was unharmed and smiling at her older sister. None the less, she kept her eyes on the blond male as she got up and dusted off a dirty, brown gardening apron that covered similarly colored and dirty work clothes.

"Racheal, you were supposed to be back nearly half an hour ago." She began by scolding her younger twin. "I was getting worried." She had looked away from Naruto momentarily to give Racheal what Naruto had dubbed the "You should know better" look that had often been directed at the Blond Ninja in his youth after he had performed a prank and had been caught by Iruka.

"Sorry, Chloe. I was in the forest and trying to find some of those flowers that Dad liked, but then I saw Mr. Whiskers here!" she pointed at Naruto who gave a sheepish smile as he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. "It was so funny, sis! After I said 'hi' he jumped so high! It was like a cat and his whiskers make him look like one too!" Naruto's smile fell off of his face. He was a fox damn it! If Kurama had been awake to hear that, then he would never live it down. Hell, if Matatabi had been awake, the ferocious hellcat would have claimed that Naruto was a perfect fit to be her jinchūriki.

"I like to think I look more like a fox, actually." Naruto interjected before Chloe could say anything. "And even if you keep calling me 'Mr. Whiskers', that's not my name!" Naruto comically exclaimed. "I already told you my name, so you can use it instead of that! I even did my own intro dance! Do you have any idea how long it took me to get that right!?"

Sadly, the reminder of the introduction dance he had performed sent the little girl to the ground clutching her stomach. She shook for a solid five seconds where Chloe had thought something was wrong or that the strange man had done something to her sister. Before she could act though, Racheal began to snigger, then giggle, then outright laugh. The girl began to roll on the ground from the force of it while Chloe stood dumbfounded and Naruto twitched an eye at the display.

His introduction dance was perfect! How dare some uncultured, little girl laugh at the sheer display of his skill! His version was much better than his godfather's!

"It was so funny, Chloe! He started jumping on one foot before spinning around and saying all these weird things!" Racheal managed to get out after taking many deep breaths. "He said he was the 'Alpha male beyond any tale with too many tails!'"

No respect. No respect for him or the biju inside him. Granted no one in this world would understand that.

Chloe turned her confused gaze away from her sister to Naruto. "What is she talking about?" Naruto's expression lit up for a moment before "Actually, I don't think I want to know." And disappointment.

After a moment for Racheal to recover, for Chloe to get over the scene she had just seen, and for Naruto to reign in his sense of failure, a tense feeling came from the older twin.

"Since it's a little suspicious of a grown man following a little girl home, I'll have to ask who you are and why you're here." Chloe stated in serious tone, sizing Naruto up for any potential threatening gesture or action.

Naruto gave a deadpan look at the dirty blonde. He had faced down the biju, a revived corpse of a madman and sore loser extraordinaire, and countless trained killers. No cautious older sister could deter or make him feel threatened. "First of all, I didn't follow anyone, for the most part. Your little sister has a hell of a grip and a lot of enthusiasm to back it up. Second, no offense, but you're not very threatening. I recommend a weapon for next time. Thirdly, I hope you're not implying I'm into little girls. Naruto Namikaze Uzumaki enjoys the ripe and sweet fruits of women. Not the buds of little children, dattebayo!" he finished strongly.

Chloe simply stared for moment before blushing at what he just said in front of her little sister. "Pervert!" she shouted as she turned to make sure Racheal did not understand what the strange man just said.

"I'm not a pervert! I'm a grown man who appreciates the beauty around me and sometimes likes to sample it!" Naruto retorted.

Hey, it's better than proclaiming that you're a super pervert.

"What's the difference!?" Chloe challenged as she covered Racheal's ears from Naruto's words. If only she knew that Racheal would remember this as she grew older and would never look at her future, older brother figure the same way.

"The difference is that I don't get caught peeking at women in the bathhouse!" Naruto countered. Wait. That sounded better and made more sense in his head.

"Do you mean to say that you do peek and just don't get caught!?" Chloe shouted in outrage.

"I'm withholding any further responses that will be taken the wrong way," Naruto said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. The corruption ran deep in him to make even his counters in an argument come out wrong. Though he really didn't peek at women in the bathhouse. By himself that is.

Jiraiya had reserved the right to bring Naruto with him when the old sannin did that so that he could point out the finer points of women to his godson. The birds and the bees speech sure was a grand thing to talk about as they were chased across town on one occasion.

"Pervert." Chloe finished the argument.

"No comment."

"Are you two doing that thing that all the other grown-ups do? Flitting? Firting? Flirting?" Ah, there was Racheal who had somehow gotten away from Chloe during the argument.

"No!" came the resounding exclamations from the two so called "grown-ups".

Racheal tilted her head. "Are you sure? Because this is just like what mom and dad used to do. Racheal remembers they wrestled after. They sure did it in a weird way though since they started to take each other's clothes off." She tilted her head the other way. "Are you two gonna wrestle now too? Cause Big Sis needs to change her clothes anyway."

…

…

…

Dead silence.

"So… Nice to meet you. I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

"I'm Chloe… This is my little sister, Racheal, who you've met already."

"Yea. Nice girl. Definitely going to be right and up girl."

"You two are so weird.

* * *

Somehow that introduction ended with Naruto being invited to stay for dinner with the two sisters as he had nowhere else to go and Racheal had begged for "Mr. Whiskers" to stay. Though Chloe was a bit suspicious still and a bit leery after justifying to herself that Naruto was a pervert. Naruto just took it all with a grin while trying to stop a tantrum mentally.

'I wonder if this is how Ero-Sennin felt with me…' he briefly thought before sending a quick prayer to the incarnation of lust known as his godfather who was probably looking down on him with a smile. Or, more likely, looking up at him from hell because of his many carnal sins. Naruto honestly believed that Jiraiya would probably end up in hell not for killing too many people or anything truly horrifying, but because of the unnatural amount of lust he held. No one reacts that strongly to his Naruko form every single time, especially after they know it's really him. Too creepy for words.

After the scene outside, the trio entered the sisters' home and made themselves comfortable. The interior of the cabin was nothing special, but it wasn't anything poor either. There were worn tables and chairs that held up well despite their age and furniture that had a scuff mark or two, but was still comfortable. There wasn't much in way of decoration except for pictures of the twins and, presumably, their parents that sat on shelves and cabinets. Chloe had Racheal lead Naruto to a small sitting room that also seemed to be the dining area while Chloe herself went to an opening that lead to a simple kitchen. It was getting around the time to eat dinner and everyone was hungry after their respectively busy days.

Naruto made small talk with Racheal as well as he could with the younger girl, but it was mostly what she did for fun or what she liked. He found out that Racheal enjoyed going into the forest to find odd mementos for herself or for others and the she liked her sister's potato soup. In fact, Racheal was excited as the soup was what they were going to have for dinner tonight and proclaimed that it was the greatest thing he would ever taste.

Poor Naruto didn't have the heart to tell her that Ichiraku Ramen was infinitely better than anything in his world or this one most likely. It was the food of the gods and as such was better than anything else. He would humor Racheal though until he could prove his point somehow. Maybe he could recreate the recipe and open his own shop in this world. It would be a success for sure and it would give him a nice and quiet life.

Nice and quiet life… Was there such a thing for him?

"Mr. Whiskers! You spaced out again!" Racheal said as she poked the Blond Shinobi. Really, her new friend was so weird. He should be happy since he was about to eat some potato soup from her sister!

"UWAH" Naruto exclaimed as he jumped again since Racheal had poked him in his ribs. Normally, he wasn't ticklish, but he had let his guard down in thought. Sadly he had once again resorted to chakra by instinct. So, with a flash of blue fire, he hit the ceiling of the room.

"Ugh," came the muffled sound of pain from the blond as his face was firmly pressed against the wood. There was enough residual chakra on the surface of his body that he actually managed to stick to the surface of the wood without the proper control. Sadly, two things had happened when this occurred. The first thing was that Racheal had seen it all and had stars in her eyes. Naruto had just proved himself a cat in human form to her as he had not only jumped up like a scared cat, but actually was clinging to the surface of something like he had claws. The other was that Chloe had entered the room with a tray that held three bowls of steaming soup. She had paid no mind to the sound the blond man made and had set the tray down on the dining table. It was when she turned around and saw him sticking to the ceiling that she became shocked.

"You… You're a wizard!" she shouted as she pointed at the seemingly impossible feat.

Her shock turned to exasperation when Naruto fell like an undignified heap of junk onto the sofa he had been sitting on. Too bad he hadn't taken off the large sealing scroll he had and landed on it. That probably was killer on his back.

"Mr. Whiskers is a cat!" Racheal shouted in glee though not being very helpful.

Naruto brought himself up and leaned back to realign his back. Damn that scroll was tough. He then turned to Racheal and pointed with a frown. "I'm a fox!" then rounded to Chloe. "What's a wizard!?" he asked in the same fashion the he used to point out he wasn't a fox. Geez, people kept labeling him something he wasn't. First it was a cat, now a wizard. Though it did bring up the question of if there were ninjas in this world and they just called themselves wizards. What was the difference again? Oh yea, he didn't dress up in silly outfits or shout out words for his attacks.

…

'Shut up,' he said in his head though he was directing it towards this reality. He was sure there was a personification of it somewhere that was laughing it up right now. 'You are so not funny.'

Chloe in the meantime was looking at Naruto as if he was an idiot. Which he wasn't. He'll gladly have you know that he was now average in the intellectual department, thank you very much. "A wizard is someone who can do what you just did. They use magic to do all sorts of things like make fire or use magical items," she explained as if she was speaking to a child.

Naruto glared for a moment. "Are you going to dismiss me for dinner now too, Sensei? Maybe assign me some homework?" he lightly retorted. He was getting a little peeved at Chloe for answering his question like she thought he was dumb. It wasn't his fault he had just arrived out of nowhere to world he didn't understand yet. The frustration was mounting.

Luckily, Chloe was too caught up in being confused by Naruto addressing her as Sensei to care for his tone. "Sensei? What does that mean?" she questioned, now it was her turn to not be in the loop. Too bad Naruto didn't feel like taking advantage of it and there was no Kurama to egg him on since he was sure the fox would do so.

"Never mind. Just assume I've been living under a rock for my whole life and that every question I have isn't me being stupid. It's me being ignorant." Kami, he was proud of his growing vocabulary. See! He even used the word "vocabulary"!

Chloe frowned, but shrugged it off. Naruto had already proven to be strange just by their meeting, so there wasn't much of a change to her perception of him if he didn't know the basics like what wizards were. "Anyway, a wizard is someone who can use magic to do all sorts of things. Like what you just did by sticking to the ceiling. Well, we generally refer to the style that someone uses as 'magic' and whatever they use in that style as a 'spell' or 'technique'." She explained. She briefly wondered what magic the blond used if it let him stick to a wall. Something involving insects? Gravity?

Naruto nodded in understanding as Racheal got their attention by sitting down at the table and taking a bowl of soup. She was obviously bored of the conversation and decided that eating would be better. Naruto and Chloe decided to follow that example and sat down to eat as well. Naruto, however, decided to ask more questions.

"So, if wizards can use magic, what do they do with it?" he asked. In his experience, if you had power, then you used it. The question was how did these wizards use their abilities? Judging from Chloe's reaction, it could either be bad or she was just plain shocked. He hoped she was only shocked since if it turns out that the wizards were all a bunch of temes, then he'd have to start out his new life by proceeding to show what being a teme got you.

An extra-large serving of Naruto styled justice in the form of a head-butt. If his head-butt could get through a psychotic, teenaged, and hormone imbalanced Gaara, then some punk wizards had no chance.

Chloe took a moment to answer as she swallowed some of the soup. "Well, most of the wizards in Fiore," Naruto filed away the name "Fiore" as where he was, "are part of a guild. Guilds are groups of wizards that band together to help each other out, live together sometimes, and perform jobs. Jobs are the requests that people send to a guild that need to be done and can go from 'clean my mansion' to 'slay the demon attacking our town'. The wizards take care of the problem, get paid, and give a portion of their reward to the guild for upkeep and all that."

Naruto nodded once more, but was confused on the inside. These wizards definitely sounded like ninjas. So far the only differences he saw was that wizards used "magic" and "spells" instead of "jutsu" and that guilds seemed to be more common and numerous than villages since Chloe made it seem like you had options.

"But, not every wizards joins a legal guild." She began once more, though Naruto wondered why she added on the word "legal". Some wizards just have regular lives and work while practicing what magic they have. Then… there's the wizards that join a dark guild." She said with a scowl. "A guild has to be approved by a council to be legal and to keep that, they have to follow certain rules. They have to abide the majority of the regular laws such as they cannot abuse their power or steal and stuff like that. But, they also can't accept certain requests. No assassinations or dark rituals and stuff like that. A dark guild is a guild that isn't approved of by the council or because they take requests they shouldn't. Most of the time, it's a mix of those two reasons."

Okay, so maybe wizards weren't ninjas after all. There wasn't a single village that turned down assassination missions or ones where you had to steal something. It was just bad business to ignore missions like that and ninjas weren't exactly moral paragons. Good for these wizards then, their morals were better than the average ninja's!

Too bad that wasn't saying much.

"I hate the dark guilds." Chloe suddenly stated with venom. "All they do is destroy, destroy, and destroy. They don't care about anyone and the wizards in them are barely human with the things they do."

'Jeez, I wonder how you would feel if you knew that I come from a place where the active military force would probably be considered a dark guild.'

"I don't like wizards either, even if they're in a legal guild." Chloe said while looking at Naruto. "They don't' do a thing about the dark guilds unless it's a request or they're ordered to. They let those monsters roam free and do whatever they want." Her tone was slowly becoming more and more heated.

Naruto merely shrugged off her perceived indirect jab at him. "You can choose to like and not like whoever you want. I'm no wizard or even part of a guild. I might be able to do what you consider magic and use what you call spells, but I don't consider myself a wizard. Mostly because I just heard of them today and I've never called myself that."

Chloe rose an eyebrow. "Then what are you if you're not a wizard?"

Naruto opened his mouth to say "shinobi", but stopped to think. A shinobi would probably be considered someone part of a dark guild here, so it wouldn't really be correct of him to say that. It didn't matter that Chloe would have no idea what a shinobi was, it was the spirit of the thing. As he pondered, Racheal decided to speak up.

"Your soup got cold."

Both Chloe and Naruto glanced down and say that the girl was correct. Racheal had long since finished her bowl and was just watching the back and forth between the two other people in the room. Sadly, they had forgotten about their food in their conversation.

Chloe shook her head in frustration and took both her bowl and Naruto's. "I'll warm these up." She then got up and went to the kitchen.

'What a nice meal' Naruto thought sarcastically.

* * *

Naruto was laying on the couch, looking at the ceiling. After Chloe had brought back their bowls, they had abandoned any conversation and proceeded to eat. It was silent affair as there was a tension between Chloe and Naruto once more. Naruto still didn't' have an answer for Chloe as to what he was and Chloe had taken his silence as an admission that he was a wizard. This then brought the question of why was Chloe's reaction to wizards so strong. She was too into the topic for it to not be personal. Naruto could make a few guesses with the state of the village, but he wasn't too sure. It could be that a dark guild had attacked the village and had caused the damage. It would explain why everyone was so jumpy around strangers and the state of everything. Still, it seemed too simple. There was something he was missing.

He would soon get his answer.

The sound of feet going down the stairs brought him from his thoughts and he saw Chloe wearing a light blue robe that covered a long, white gown for sleep. Her hair was erratic from the day and turning in bed, though she didn't seem that sleepy.

"Can't sleep?" she lightly questioned.

"Yea. It's been a hectic day for me." Pfft, yea. Because crossing realties can simply be called "hectic".

There was silence for a few minutes.

"I'm sure you saw how the village looked on the way here." Chloe stated.

"Kinda hard not to." Naruto replied.

"The reason for that is because of two dark guilds or at least one dark guild and a group of dark mages." Chloe said as she took a seat across from Naruto. "A few years ago, we were attacked. We never found out if it was a dark guild or just a group of rouge mages, but they decimated the village. But that wasn't' the worst of it. They attacked us for a reason."

"While they were destroying the village, they also kidnapped children."

Now that made Naruto grit his teeth in anger.

"My mom and dad… they hid me and Racheal outside the village. We stayed there the whole night. Then, when we came back to the village in the morning after the attack and saw the survivors…our parents weren't there. No one knows if they were taken, they escaped, or their bodies just were never found. Either way, we lost our parents that night, our village was destroyed, and no one came to help. We didn't have the money to send a request because of the attack, but we managed. Those of us left took care of each other. It took a few years, but we managed to get back to some semblance of normalcy."

"…And the dark guild you mentioned?" Naruto prompted.

Chloe swallowed back her sorrow, though her eyes were beginning to water. "A few months ago, maybe two or three, a dark guild began to attack and raid our village. This time, they didn't kidnap anyone, they just said we had to pay for protection."

"Protection from them."

Chloe nodded. "We barely get by right now. Because of the situation, we don't have the funds to send a request again and if the dark guild got wind of us asking for help, they would just wipe us out before anyone showed up."

They were both silent again. Chloe was trying to rein her emotions and Naruto was deep in thought.

"That's why I hate dark guilds, wizards, and all of it." She finished her story. She then directed her gaze at Naruto. "That's why I want you leave tomorrow. You don't call yourself a wizard, but that's what you are. You'll just cause trouble if you stay here. Even if you don't do anything, the dark guild will just think you're here to help us and slaughter everyone."

Naruto withheld the urge to snort. He may be out of practice, in a state where his chakra control was shit, and had more power than he could deal with, but he could probably still win. If this dark guild was targeting this small village, then they probably were small time and had nothing else going for them. Actually, screw that probably. Naruto was positive he could win. Before he could voice his thoughts though, an explosion rocked the land outside.

Naruto's training kicked into high gear and he exploded into action. He jumped off the sofa with yet another flash of blue flames as his chakra coursed through his body and out due to the sheer volume of it. He picked up the strap of his large scroll and rushed to the door. He briefly heard Chloe telling him to stop, but ignored her as he opened the door and ran out.

He saw the light of flames up ahead and ran towards them, aware of Chloe running after him still in her nightwear. The shouts of the other villagers filled the night along with something else. Cruel laughter. Whoever was in the dark guild was enjoying this.

Oh, if only Kurama or any of the other biju were awake right now. He would let them take control so fast so that they could play. It wouldn't even be funny as the nine biju took turns playing with the malicious humans before either ending them or incapacitating them.

He arrived in what was the village's main square and gathering area. What he saw made his hands bleed from his nails digging into his skin. On the ground was a young woman who was battered, bruised, and bleeding. Luckily she was still breathing. The other villagers were standing just a few meters away from her, looking angry and terrified at the same time. But they weren't who grabbed Naruto's attention. The figures wearing the blood red coats and hoods were. Each of them wore the outfit and had their hoods up and there was no real discerning feature to any of them besides their height, weight, and their sex. All except for one. A man with long green hair, thin face, and vicious looking eyes stood over the wounded woman, his mouth curled into a sadistic smirk. He was tall and thin, though he was slightly hunched over.

"See, this is what happens when you try to run off in the middle of the night to get help." The man said as he rested a black boot on the woman's face. She whimpered in pain and Naruto's vision flashed red. This scum… he was picking on those who couldn't defend themselves and when one of their own tried to help the rest, this was her reward.

"Maybe I should give her a reminder of why you shouldn't cross me and my guild." He brought a hand up and a sickly green circle with runes appeared before it engulfed his hand. In flash of the same color, his hand was covered in numerous sickle like protrusions. It was grotesque to see the spiraling blades protruding out of his hand giving it the appearance of numerous curled claws covering it. He brought the hand to the woman's cheek as he bent down. "I'll carve our name into your pretty, little head. You'll be our property then, won't you? Granted this whole village and everyone in it is our property already. Maybe I should just carve our name into everyone here."

That was it. Naruto decided he couldn't take another word. Not another breath. Not another second more than he had to. He would force this vile man and his dark guild out one way or another. As he was about to step forward, he felt a hand grip his arm.

"What are you doing!?" Chloe hissed.

"Apparently saving you and the rest of these people from getting mutilated!" he hissed back and shoved her off.

Chloe tried to stop the blond again, but failed as he quickly stepped forward past the gathered crowd. He got the attention of the dark guild pretty quickly with his actions and expression. His face was set into an indifferent mask, but his blue eyes were cold chips of ice. Naruto pulled back his killing intent for the moment. He wanted to have a quick word before he let them taste what he would do them.

"And who are you?" the leader asked, curious to see what fool would walk up to him and his guildmates.

"Normally I have a little introduction I like to do when asked that, but you're not worth it. Now, since I answered your question, why don't you answer mine. Why are you doing this?"

The leader tilted his head in confusion. It reminded Naruto of Racheal from earlier before he disregarded her innocence from this man's twisted nature.

"That's a stupid question. Because we can. We take what we want because we have the power to do so. That's our way; the way of Natural Predator. We were even nice enough to set a few ground rules so the weak would know their place or we would punish them for breaking the rules. This little wench here broke the rules. She tried to leave the village to get help and we caught her. Now we have to punish her and everyone else, including you."

Naruto was silent for a moment. Then he started to shake. At first the gathered individuals thought that it was from fear. They believed that blond had realized what he had done and what would happen. Then, the most disturbing thing they could imagine happened. The blond opened his mouth and then…

He laughed.

"Hahahahaha! That's so cute! You named your guild Natural Predator and you think I'm your prey!? Oh, Kami! I can't take it! I mean, I thought I was good at pranking people, but you! You are just great!" Naruto said between his laughter.

Sadly, the leader of the opposition didn't share in Naruto's humor. "You little, weak shit. Do you think you're the predator here? You're just a weak little lamb that we're going to dig our claws into!" he emphasized his point by swinging the clawed hand he had next to the downed woman at Naruto. Too bad Naruto's laughter had died away and left him serious again.

"You're right about one thing. I'm not a predator." Naruto whispered his words though they still seemed to drift through the air and were heard. Slowly, a kind of pressure began to emanate from the blond. It wasn't anything visible or overt, but it was there. It made the company's hair stand on end. Sweat began to roll off of the members of the dark guild. Even the leader looked slightly shaken. Naruto held back most of his killing intent as the villagers would be affected and they would probably go insane from the strain of it. But it would do its job and now he needed the final touch for his theatrics.

"I'm an apex predator. The baddest and most dangerous thing around."

Naruto flared up his chakra and was surrounded by the azure flames and wisps that embraced his body. He felt his power rush through his being and warm his blood. He was ready for combat and ready to dish out ass kickings like they were going out of style.

"Wha-"one of the lesser members of the dark guild said before he was silenced. Naruto had rushed forward, using his natural speed that was built up from the continuous strain of his body using chakra his whole life. He wasn't a blur, but it was fast enough. His fist collided with the man's jaw and he flew back. The man only stopped when he hit a tree and then crumpled to the ground. Naruto was sure that the wizard's jaw was broken and the red of his robes was no longer distinguishable from the red of his blood.

Silence.

"Uzumaki battle tactic number one: If you can't keep up, keep your mouth shut." Naruto simply stated before he rounded towards the next wizard, his chakra still flaring to intimidate the enemy, and delivered a round house kick to the man's side. The wizard flew back to join his comrade in unconsciousness and landed with sickening crunch. His ribs would not be in a pleasant state and that didn't even include the chance that some of his organs had been pierced by the bones. These wizards sure didn't train their bodies if they were this frail. If all the wizards of this world were like this, then Naruto could already be considered the strongest being alive without checking.

"Uzumaki battle tactic number two: If you don't do trash talk, then get out."

'Doesn't that kind of go against rule number one if they can't keep up!?' his audience thought briefly as they were unhinged by the display they were seeing.

The dark guild then recovered and its leader shouted his order.

"What are you waiting for!? Get him! There's only one of him! I want to see his body sliced up, burned, and skinned!" He shouted as he let his grunts go in first. Just because he was angry didn't mean he would rush in without more knowledge of the blond. Let the others take some hits before he took the blond out.

The grunts then yelled out an affirmative before various circles of all shapes, sizes, and colors appeared with runes on all of them. Each one then sent out a different element or projectile. Some shot out simple fire, some sharp gales of wind, others sparks of lightening, or freezing jets of water along with a flash of steel from a sword or dagger. Too bad Naruto had faced down all of these things from far superior opponents and just scoffed.

Running in a zig-zag away from the village and crowd, he dodged the projectiles that we sent out at him and decided on what to do. While he could probably just beat on all of them and win, that would probably cause more damage to the surroundings and there was a change of harming a bystander. His jutsu were out of reach still and he wasn't about to experiment here where a miscalculation would probably blow something up or not even work in the first place. Thus, he would try something new for him.

Sealing.

Or rather unsealing. It didn't matter how much chakra you put into sealing or unsealing something since the strength of a seal was determined by the formula used and not the chakra. You could overload it as much as you wanted, but you would just waste chakra in sealing or unsealing the object in question. Thus, when the attacks that were sent out at him raised the dust around him into a large cloud, he acted. Slinging off the large scroll and opening it, he set it in front of him. He knew by heart where the seal he wanted was and even if he didn't, he could feel it calling him.

After all, its occupant was hungry and hadn't had dinner yet.

The crowd and dark guild waited for the cloud of dust to clear. The guild had assumed their attack had worked while the leader was somewhat wary and the villagers had defeated looks and despair etched onto their faces. Chloe especially seemed to be distraught. She believed that the strange blond had been killed just as it seemed like he could help them. Even if he didn't mean to, he had failed them.

'This is why I hate wizards… They never help'

"_Fuin Kai_ (Seal Release)!" they heard the blond yell from the dust as it settled.

Standing there, looking no worse for the wear, was Naruto. But, he had something with him. He was holding a large object that was wrapped in bandages with a yellow hilt that had skull at the end. His expression was still set in stone and his eyes cold as he regarded the wizards once more. To say that they were discouraged would be putting it mildly. They just launched a barrage of attacks and there was nothing wrong with him.

"Sorry for not making this more personal. Usually I'd like to beat on you myself, but I'm kind of in a weird situation. Conveniently enough though, I have the solution right here. Say hello, Samehada."

"**GIGIGIGIGIGI!" **(Hello, dinner! Samehada is happy that you're here!)

The most disturbing thing was not that the sword had actually responded, it was that whatever was under the bandages moved and pulsated with the sound. It looked as if something writhed underneath and was ready to get at them. They might actually have been less afraid if they knew what the sword had actually said. Too bad only Naruto understood the sword at the moment due to how much of his chakra the sword had eaten since he had gotten it.

"I'll let you all get acquainted. _Ninpō:_ _Ken Kemonoka_ (Ninja Art: Sword Beast Transformation)."

Naruto tossed the sword into the air as the bandages around it were shredded by the movement underneath them. As the cloth fell away, the gathered wizards and townsfolk saw what looked like a sword, but instead of a blade, there was a mass of scales. Their confusion lasted only for a moment before the scales began to actually move and four points began to form. Before the sword hit the ground it had what appeared to be legs. Next, while standing, the hilt elongated and became a golden tail with a skull tapering the end. The top of the blade then opened to reveal a mouth filled with sharp teeth. The scales bristled as the sword or beast roared.

"**GIGIGIGIGIGI!" **(Samehada is ready! Will the tasty morsels please get ready?)

'Kami, Samehada is weird…' Naruto thought to himself briefly.

Then Samehada rushed forth and began to tear and shred away at the wizards. Whenever the wizards would use magic, Samehada decided to try to eat the attack. Samehada seemed to like it as it growled in appreciative manner. This left the gathered enemy crowd terrified and their performance suffered for it. Soon enough, all that was left was the leader and heap of injured wizards in various states of being close to death. Some were at death's door and others were on their merry way.

"Wha..What just…What are you!?" the green haired man yelled as Samehada calmly walked towards Naruto.

"**GIGIGIGIGIGIGIG" **(The Wielder really found a nice place. So many nice tastes. Samehada is proud of the Wielder and his sorry ass.)

"Shut up, you jerk," Naruto said as he scoffed at the sword turned beast as it went past him and laid down. He then turned to the shaking green haired man. "You know, someone else asked me a question like that. I really should give her an answer." He then calmly walked forward once more. "You know, while Samehada over there was tearing your guild a new one, I had a thought. You see, I have this… spell that I really like to use, but couldn't at the moment until maybe just now. See, my control is kind of whacked out right now and my I'm not used to having so much power. Now, this little spell has a set shape and you kind of just pack all of what you got into it and swirl it around. Did I lose you yet?"

The fear in the leader's eyes slowly was replaced with rage once more. But this was the rage of a desperate animal. Naruto knew that the man had lost it and was going to attack him without regard. The pupils were dilated and he was sweating. Yea, this guy was over the edge.

"Now, what if I just made that shape a lot bigger to compensate? Well, I might just be able to use it. Let me use you as a test." Naruto raised his hand and the blazing blue aura began to swirl there. It slowly became a large sphere the size of a house. As it stabilized, it didn't seem to be solid, but rather was made up of several swirling energies that gave the orb a spiraling effect. The whole process took some time, but luckily his crowd was transfixed enough to give it to him.

"Come at me, little lamb," Naruto taunted.

And the leader rushed him, a wild beast that was ready to come and try to end his life. Too bad he had no chance.

"_Rasengan_ (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto rushed forward as best he could with his rasengan and collided the jutsu with the man's sickled arm.

There was no contest. The arm was deflected and mangled by the force of the attack before the rasengan hit the man and engulfed him before sending him flying back like a corkscrew.

"Uzumaki battle tactic number three: You're not number one. I'm number one."

The villagers simply stared at the result of the battle with open mouths. They were amazed, shocked, and honestly flabbergasted.

"**GIGIGIGIGI" **(The Wielder needs to get his rules together. The Wielder sounds too much like his old bratty self.)

'Kami damn it, Samehada. I thought I was cool.'

* * *

**And that's the chapter. Now, please send me messages/reviews for who you want the pairing to be once more and if you say Erza, please give me a decent argument as to why it has to be her. I'm open to what you have to say as long as you can give me a decent argument and I'll at least consider it. **

**Now you can see why Naruto won't be overpowered. Or at least the beginning of it. Allow me to explain it here though. Naruto's overall chakra has increased and his control has suffered as well. This means that he can't mold his chakra correctly for any jutsu and that they tend to be unstable. The only exception to this is the rasengan and that's only because he literally had to adjust the size of shell of it. In the end, all he has is a big rasengan that has the power of the original and takes too long to make. He can't even use chakra to increase his physical attributes because of his lack of control and sheer amount. Sage mode is currently unavailable because he can't balance his chakra with the natural energy of the world plus the eternano of the world is foreign to him and he doesn't really know what to do with it. The biju are also all still sleeping so no biju assistance until they wake up. Adding in no sage mode and no biju help, he can not use the Six Paths Sage mode either. On the bright side, his base stats are higher and his potential has increased, though he's lost his big guns and powers for now. He'll get them back and new ones as the story progresses.  
**

**Hopefully I'll update faster for the next chapter!  
See you then, yall!**


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